


of course

by eckso



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Australia, Alternate Universe - High School, Basketball, Fluff and Angst, I dont know what else to tag this with, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan is a Mess, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Not Canon Compliant, Oh, Slow Burn, Unreliable Narrator, blatant park jisung erasure and i apologise, bro ao3 has the funniest fucking established tags shut up, it's not super australian but i don't know how to write korean high school, jaemin exists here on a 'blink and you'll miss it' basis also, kind of? hmm, so is kun, taeil and taeyong are teachers, that isn't a tag but why
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:28:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24108265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eckso/pseuds/eckso
Summary: “I mean, we both know I have a big, fat, throbbing crush on him.” Renjun retches involuntarily on the other end of the phone line.“We won’t be fucking calling it that. Can’t you just say you have a crush on him? Leave it there, for fucks sake.”(Where Donghyuck has been in love with Mark from afar since the 8th grade but now 'afar' has become 2 feet away from him as they walk to school together every morning and he doesn't quite know how to handle it.)
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Lee Jeno, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan & Mark Lee, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 72
Kudos: 371





	of course

**Author's Note:**

> quick thank you to G, if she sees this, for reading along as i wrote and correcting my spelling errors. 
> 
> also, if you're worried, this isn't too australian. i just kinda needed it to be hot weather-wise to start off the fic and god fucking knows australian summers are ASS. 
> 
> the song for this fic is 'something stupid' by frank sinatra, this is the vibe https://soundcloud.com/e-milyroberts/somethingstupid
> 
> thank you for reading. xx

Mark and Donghyuck (kind of) meet in the summer. It’s hot, like it always is in Australia and Donghyuck has spent the last month of his life spending every waking second wanting to be skinless. Because it’s summer, he’s at home for longer periods of time than at any other point in the year. This means begging his mother to let him take the portable standing fan out of the living room and into his room (he could just sit in the living room but he’s decided he is physically unable to dress any more extensively than just boxers and he doesn’t particularly fancy having to deal with his balls sticking to his thighs whilst his thighs stick to a sweaty leather couch). His mother, an opportunist, answers every plea with a requirement. So far, to earn the fan, he’s: given the dog, and subsequently just about every square inch of his bathroom, a bath; painted the skirting boards; helped make apricot jam and cleaned his car. This morning, waking up to 40-degree heat and a layer of perspiration already clinging to his skin, he’d hoped his mum would at least be kind enough not to ask him to mow the lawn or something. 

He walks into the kitchen, eyes closed in a feat of energy conservation, navigating the space purely by muscle memory and getting all the way to the fridge with his lips around the opening of the open bottle of orange juice before sighing. He opens his eyes, looking into the contents of the fridge with pursed lips. He isn't too big. Maybe he’d only have to take out one shelf to fit in there. Maybe two, for some extra room so he didn’t get uncomfortable between now and 6 weeks from now when he could emerge from the fridge to temperatures at least below 30 degrees. He hugs the orange juice to his chest as he ducks his head into the open door and sighs again, eyes slipping closed in pure, cool, serenity until the sound of rustling paper and scissors makes him crack his right eye open. 

He pulls out of the fridge and shuts the door behind him, taking the orange juice with him as he goes to lean on the kitchen island where his mum is sat, cutting the letter ‘Y’ out of purple craft paper. In front of her, glued to a piece of cardboard, are the letters, ‘ARD SALE’ in various colours. 

“How many times have I told you not to drink from the bottle?” She asks, not even looking up from her cutting. Donghyuck swallows and recaps the bottle before setting it down on the counter.

“Sorry. I’m dying.” He wipes a new line of sweat from his neck to punctuate the statement.  
“What are you doing? Also, can I have the fan?”

“Of course you can, baby.” His mother finishes on the ‘Y’, lining it up on the cardboard and smiling before looking up at Donghyuck as he turns to put the orange juice back into the fridge, stopping again to imagine a world where he was a bottle of orange juice, perfect size to sit in the fridge forever. His mother looks at the visible beads of sweat on the back of his neck and scrunches her nose, picking up the glue stick next to her to finish her poster. “You’ll need to have a shower though.”

Donghyuck freezes. 

He spins, wide eyed and slack-jawed in shock and disbelief and maybe heatstroke. 

“Is that,” he stops, “is that all you want me to do?”

His mother laughs, looking down at the cardboard with appraising eyes. Donghyuck looks at it too. 

“No, you’re helping me with the yard sale. But I can’t have you stinking away any potential buyers!” She muses, still looking at the poster she’s made. “So, shower first. Yard sale, second.”

Donghyuck’s jaw swings shut. Great. 

Thus, an hour and 45 minutes later, after a shower and 25 minutes of folding flyers his mother then forced his younger sister Donghee to put in all the mail boxes on their street, he’s stood in front of their own mail box with his mother on one side and his sister on the other, watching the weird man from across the road sift through their old, unused CD collection with a furrowed brow.

“Can I go inside now? You promised me the fan if I helped.” He whines, the heat bothering him and CD man’s shiny bald head casting an almost-solar-flare right into his eyes. Donghee snickers and jabs an elbow into his stomach.

“You’re such a baby. It’s literally not even that hot.” She says, her hands on her hips and her face sweat-free. Donghyuck feels the wetness on his upper lip and, not for the first time this summer, feels like crying. 

He looks back at his mother right as she looks at him. There must be something especially pathetic in his eyes, or maybe she’s just as disgusted by his general dampness as he is, because her eyes soften around the curious peer she’d been aiming at weird CD man. 

“Yeah, you can go. Thank you for your help. You can have the fan tomorrow too if you promise to let your sister sit in your room with you if she gets too hot.” His mother ruffles his hair, recoiling a bit when her hand catches on the saturated strands but Donghyuck’s mood is quelled regardless. 

His face breaks into a big grin as Donghee mutters that she definitely would not be going into his room because, “he literally smells right now, mum,” swooping in for a wet smooch to his mother’s cheek, made extra wet by the water moustache he’d acquired and subsequently transferred to his mother. Using the hand in his hair to yank his face away from hers, his mother shrieks. 

“Gross, Hyuck. Stop it.” He laughs as she tries to push him back up the driveway to the front door, Donghee joining in instantly simply for the chance to inflict minor physical abuse on her brother with her mother’s initiation. 

He puckers his lips again and aims for his mother’s forehead, perfect height for him. Right as he makes contact, someone clears their throat behind his mother. 

Donghee stops pushing with a giggle and Donghyuck’s mother pulls back and gives one last withering look at her son, the edges of her grimace soft with endearment before turning to the voice, giving Donghyuck the opportunity to look up at the person in front of them. 

During the summer leading up to this point, he’d started a fun game with himself where he had to name all the parts of his body sweating at any given time. 2 seconds ago, he would have listed his upper lip, neck, arm pits, chest, knee pits and feet. Right now, he feels his palms join that list.

Mark Lee looks between the three of them with a wide-eyed look of interest and amusement. 

“Oh, are you here for the Yard Sale? Sorry, what were you interested in?” His mother asks with a big smile, motioning her hands around to the bits and pieces littering their front lawn. Mark smiles bashfully and looks at the ground before looking back up at Donghyuck’s mother. Donghyuck feels the urge to cry again. 

“No, I’m sorry. Um, my family and I just moved into this street and my mum saw your flyer in the letterbox and thought it would be a good opportunity for us to come and introduce ourselves.” His hand comes up to rub at the back of his neck and he looks to the ground again, his eyes light. “Except she only sent me, because-,” he stops, seemingly unsure of what the truthful rest of his own statement is. Donghyuck’s mother laughs. 

“Because she’s your mother, that’s what we do! My Hyuckie’s only out here with us because I’d only let him use the fan if he helped!” His mother motions over her shoulder to where her son stands behind her. 

Sweaty Donghyuck, who had been very happy to spend the entirety of this conversation as Sweaty, Uninvolved Donghyuck watches Mark Lee’s eyes move to him, still round with polite happiness. He hopes that he’s at least sweated strongly enough through his shirt that his sweat patches are non-distinguishable from the general dampness of the fabric. He also hopes Mark Lee looks away soon because he does not want Mark Lee, Donghee or his mother to see him cry right now. He stands silently, with what must be an awkward close-lipped smile and Mark Lee’s head tilts to the side, face moulding to a look of recognition and then the happy eyes are back. “Donghyuck Lee, right?” 

Donghyuck makes a sound of affirmation that comes out a little strangled. Donghee snorts and shoves him and his mother turns with a questioning look, face changing to one of mirth when she sights his expression. “Do you guys go to school together? Donghyuck, why didn’t you say you knew this nice boy?” Donghyuck isn’t sure he could say anything at all right now. Luckily (maybe not), Mark must gather this because he replies in Donghyuck’s stead. Donghyuck, who is now looking at weird, bald CD man for some solace and wishing more than ever than he was a fucking bottle of orange juice. 

Mark looks back at Donghyuck’s mother. “Yeah, I’m in the grade above but we took combined Music together a couple of years ago. He can really sing!” Mark’s face opens into a big smile and CD man has Donghee’s copy of Taylor Swift’s second album in his hand, holding it up to his ear as he shakes it, his brows still furrowed. 

Donghyuck’s mother brightens at the praise as if it was directed at her herself and moves to put a hand on Donghyuck’s forearm, which is sweaty because his whole body is and he’s uncomfortable and his mum promised him the fan for two whole days if he can just get inside without dying. “Isn’t he? My baby is so talented but he never believes in himself enough to sing outside of his bedroom. That’s so nice of you to say.” Her grip on his forearm tightens and he flinches, looking away from CD man’s CD tambourine dance and at his mother. “Isn’t that nice of your friend to say?” Her expression dares Donghyuck to stay mute and leave her hanging. Donghee hides another laugh behind her hand.

Donghyuck looks at Mark Lee with a slight wince, but doesn’t look him in the eyes because he’s still a bit winded. “Yeah, that really is nice of you to say.” He looks to Mark’s eyes, his happy eyes, and Mark’s smile brightens a little bit.

“No worries, man. I mean it.” Donghyuck’s mother lets go of his arm and he looks away from Mark.

“I’m sorry I didn’t ask, but what’s your name, sweet boy? I’ll have to send Hyuckie over with some cookies or something for you and your parents to welcome you into the neighbourhood!” 

Mark Lee opens his mouth in surprise and raises his hands hurriedly to try and fan Donghyuck’s mother’s promise out of the air. “No, it’s no hassle. I just thought I’d say hi.”

Donghyuck’s mother gives Mark the polite, for visitors, version of the daring glare she’d given her son before and the frantic movements of his hands ease at her motherly stubbornness. 

“We moved into the cream house over there, number 127. And, I’m Mark. Mark Lee.” To Donghyuck, it feels like the kind of moment where an actor drops the name of the film in the dialogue of a scene. 

Donghyuck’s mother smiles happily, having won the information she wanted and stored it away as the receiving address of a plate of baked goods at a later date. CD man seems to have decided on one of Donghyuck’s old EXO albums, as he walks towards the four of them while fishing what Donghyuck hopes is his wallet out of his back pocket. 

“Well, Mark Lee, thank you for introducing yourself! I hope you and your family are getting settled well in the new house!” She pats Mark’s shoulder and Mark nods as CD man gets to them and she turns away from them to speak. Mark turns to Donghyuck and Donghee with his stupid smiley eyes. 

“Nice to see you, Donghyuck! Maybe we can walk to school or something together? I doubt I’ll be able to be ready early enough to walk over and catch my old bus route.” He still talks with his hands and his eyes still crease daintily as he laughs. Donghyuck nods like he’s got water in his ears. Maybe his brain is sweating or something.

“Yeah. Um, well, you know where to find me.” He motions backwards to his house, unearthing the true extent of his pit stains as he lifts his arm. Mark’s eyes drop to his outstretched wrist and travel up the length of his arm. Donghyuck wrenches it back into his body as quickly as humanly possible. Mark’s eyes track back up to Donghyuck’s face and his too-wide eyes. Donghee is practically levitating with glee as she looks between them. 

“Yeah.” Mark moves backwards, towards his house. Thank god. “I’ll see you then?” 

Donghyuck nods again and takes his own step backwards, reaching his hand out as far as it will go to grab Donghee’s shorts and pull her with him without freeing the fabric cinched by his clamped armpit. 

“You’ll- yep! See you!” He speeds up a little, talking small, short steps backwards up the driveway and dragging his sister along. Donghee is snickering quite loudly and Donghyuck is miserable. 

Mark Lee looks a little bit scared but he raises a thin wrist in a tentative wave and Donghyuck instantly spins around as he gets to the front door and shoves it open, pulling Donghee behind him and all but running into the kitchen. His lovely, loving, lovable baby sister’s face is bright red from holding in her laughter and she has to crouch on the floor to stop from falling over as Donghyuck catches his breath.

“What-,” She heaves, rather uglily, Donghyuck thinks unhappily, “the fuck was that?” She finishes, yelling after him through a cackle and Donghyuck stomps up the stairs to his room, leaving his hard-earned fan behind in his haste. He won’t need the fan if he just drowns himself in the shower. 

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

“I might actually throw myself out of the window.”

“You literally just said it wasn’t that bad.”

“I was lying, it was awful, and I am going to throw myself out of the window.” Donghyuck has his face jammed right into his pillow, his phone sat on his nightstand on speaker phone and Renjun on the other side of it, sighing with resignation. 

“You said he knew your name, right? That has to count for something.” Renjun leads, tone trying to convey some kind of hope. Donghyuck has long abandoned hope because while he may be an idiot, he is not stupid. 

“All it counts for is him having a name to associate my stupid, sweaty face and armpits and gross, slimy body with and that I’ve ruined any opportunity I could have had to improve the impression I’ve made on Mark Fucking Lee so he doesn’t think I’m a lame kid. Now, he thinks I’m a lame, sweaty kid.” He gives up on trying to smother himself with his pillow and turns onto his back. Why can’t he do anything? “Mum called me ‘baby.’ In front of him. He thinks I’m a child.” He finishes dramatically. 

“You are being a bit of a child right now.” Renjun shoots back, patient as usual.

“I’m going to throw myself out of the window.”

“No, you are not. You are going to take a deep breath and you are going to tell me what happened again, this time letting oxygen actually get to your brain so you don’t have a panic attack and I don’t have to panic by proxy. No one should be panicking. Don’t make me panic.” Renjun huffs and so does Donghyuck. “Now, tell me about Mark Fucking Lee.”

Donghyuck stares up at the stuck-on glow in the dark stars on his ceiling that have been there since he was 8, the same stars he’d stared at every night after combined Music class while daydreaming about Mark Lee’s eyelashes and his big, smiley eyes. He takes a shuddering breath in. 

“I mean, we both know I have a big, fat, throbbing crush on him.” Renjun retches involuntarily on the other end of the phone line.

“We won’t be fucking calling it that. Can’t you just say you have a crush on him? Leave it there, for fucks sake.”

“So I have a crush on him.” Donghyuck sighs and looks away from the ceiling. “A big, moony one where I just want to look at him and kind of never want him to know who I am, you know? It’s kind of too big of a crush for me to handle any kind of interaction.”

“As evidenced by today.” Renjun mutters. Donghyuck repeats his words in affirmation. 

“But now we’ve interacted, more than we ever did in combined Music three years ago, and he offered even more interaction in the future and I don’t think I’m equipped to handle any of this?” He pauses and Renjun waits for him to continue. “Like, I was perfectly ready to just stare at him until he graduates because I’d never even be on his radar but now, he lives down the street from me and my mum knows his name and he asked if I wanted to walk to school together.”

“And how do you feel about being on his radar?” Renjun probes. Donghyuck pauses, swills the words around in his mouth for a second to try and put them in the sincerest order possible.

“I don’t think I want to go back to not existing to him.” Renjun makes a pointed noise of interest. “But I actually don’t know if it’s worth me even trying to exist around him because he makes me so nervous that he apparently impedes my ability to speak.”

“Okay. Well, we can work on fixing your existence but knowing you want to be around him is a good starting point, right? That means that you can start practicing making conversation with him on the walk to school without vomiting or something.” Donghyuck shuts his eyes and imagines having Mark’s eyes on him again. Preferably when he’s not so sweaty and it’s winter and he has his favourite leather jacket and striped turtle neck on and he feels confident. He feels the bile rise in the back of his throat in warning. He swallows heavily and sighs. 

“Yeah, you’re right, Injunnie. As always. I’ve just got to get used to him. Also, how’s Jeno?” Donghyuck smiles despite himself.

“Driving me fucking insane, if I’m honest. His parents are on a cruise around the country but he gets super seasick so he’s staying over till they get back in like a month’s time and, God. I love him but how am I only just now finding out he fucking talks in his sleep?” Donghyuck laughs at Renjun’s tone, exasperated but the corners are rounded with fond amusement. Donghyuck quietly thinks Renjun would probably put up with Jeno reciting the entire Australian National Anthem in his sleep if he was doing it with an arm around Renjun’s middle and a chin tucked into Renjun’s neck. 

“Don’t pretend you’re angry at him. Lying is unbecoming of a lady.” Donghyuck grabs his phone off the nightstand and flips onto his stomach, swiping up on the call to get to his home screen and opening Instagram as Renjun complains that he’s a perfectly respectable lady. He searches Jeno’s username and starts scrolling. 

Renjun and Jeno had met in Student Leadership in 9th grade and Donghyuck’s most memorable take away from the beginning of their relationship was witnessing Renjun crying for the first and only time after he’d seen Jeno dancing with Yeri Kim at the End of Year Formal and assumed the other was straight, the tears because Renjun had spent the past year half in love with him. After a brief but potent sob in the toilets with a quite stressed Donghyuck standing in the door way, holding toilet roll to wipe Renjun’s eyes, and a shot of non-alcoholic fruit punch he, having never drank alcohol before, pretended was some kind of spirit to psych himself up, he confronted Jeno. It turned out that Jeno and Yeri only knew each other because their parents were family friends and they’d grown up like siblings, and Jeno was not straight but half in love with Renjun too. They didn’t start dating right away because Renjun was nervous they’d ruin their friendship, but when Jeno kissed him under the confetti when his team won the last basketball game of the year and asked him to be his boyfriend, he found he didn’t have any worthwhile reason to say no. Proper fairy-tale shit.

Jeno’s Instagram was mainly pictures of himself and Renjun or just Renjun, the back of his head while they watched a sunset, their hands clasped together, selfies of toothy smiles and kisses on cheeks. 

He kept scrolling until he landed on a particular picture, his usual destination when he ended up on Jeno’s Instagram at some hour of the night. The picture is lit by the ceiling lights of the school sports hall, and the frame is filled with people: Jeno, Jaemin Na and Mark Lee himself in the foreground with the rest of the basketball team interspersed in the fore and background. Donghyuck’s eyes linger, as they do every time, on the comfortable, lazy hand Mark has around Jaemin Na’s shoulders, the basketball he has to his hip with the other hand and the easy grin he has on his face. Donghyuck has always thought he looked the most like himself with a smile. Donghyuck wishes he could reach into the picture and brush the black hair falling into Mark’s eyes back off his forehead. Donghyuck wishes.

Renjun is talking to Jeno on the other end of the phone line, who must have entered Renjun’s room while Donghyuck was tuned out, when he exits Instagram and enters back into the call screen. 

“Hey, Injunnie? I’m gonna go, I’m kinda tired. I’ll speak to you tomorrow, tell Jeno I said hi. Tell him I’ll rip out his vocal chords if he keeps my baby awake at night again.”

Renjun snorts and Donghyuck hears Jeno splutter a bit, making Renjun laugh harder.

“I might just strangle him first.” Renjun laughs and Donghyuck huffs a laugh too. “Bye, Hyuckie. Love you.”

“Love you too, Junnie.” Donghyuck smiles.

“Bye, Donghyuck!” Jeno says into the phone, closer than he was before. Probably snuggled around Renjun in bed. Donghyuck wishes. 

“Bye, Jeno.” He waits for silence before clicking the end call button and flopping down onto his back, eyes back on the glowing stars.

How to get used to Mark Lee. 

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

Unbeknownst to Donghyuck, his mother is apparently a firm believer in there being no time like the present because he wakes up the next morning to the symphony of pots and pans clanging together. 

He rolls onto his back with his eyes still shut, breathing deeply through his nose, trying to ignore how swelteringly hot the room is and how much he would really love to not have to face Mark Lee again at least until school starts in a few weeks. He’s in the middle of doing a meditative breathing exercise Renjun had told him was good for ‘calming the mind’ when his door slams open and Donghee walks in and lies down on the bed. 

“Good morning. Please put some clothes on, you are disgusting.” Immediately, Donghyuck wishes he were still asleep.

“You’re in my fucking room, you gremlin. Besides, if I have to deal with you walking around the kitchen in a bra, you can handle me having my thighs out in the comfort of my own space.” He narks but gets self-conscious in the middle anyway and heaves his sheets off the floor to cover his body. Donghee nods approvingly, with a smirk.

“Better. We should get you a paper bag or something so no one has to look at your ugly face though, big bro. Especially cause mum is downstairs making your boyfriend Mark Lee’s brownies right now.” Her eyes glimmer as she throws out exaggerated finger hearts when she says the boy’s name. 

“Surely you can go over there?” He pleads, but her face goes impassive. “You saw what I was like yesterday. What if I say the wrong thing accidentally and he sets the house on fire?” Donghyuck is nothing if not a dramatic fatalist and Donghee knows that.

“Simple. Me and mum would get out as quick as possible and leave you right in, ‘the comfort of your own space,’ so you can burn for your sins.” She makes big bunny-ear hand motions as she uses his words, then raises her eyebrows. “He seems nice though. I don’t think he’d set the house on fire. I think he’d just make you feel embarrassed enough that you’d want to do it yourself.” She turns and props her head up on her hand to look at him with her piercing sister eyes. He winces.

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” He pauses, weighing up the pros and cons of getting the honesty he knows he will in response to the question he wants to ask. “How bad was it?” Donghee flops back down on the bed with a loud laugh. Donghyuck’s shoulders droop.

“It was quite bad. Why did you freeze up like that? Mum asked me afterwards if I thought it was because he’d bullied you or something.” She laughs right through the sentence and Donghyuck hangs his head. 

“How fucking shit is that? Did you see what I looked like? Did you see what he looked like? God, and now mum wants me to face him again with not even 24 hours of buffering time?” He falls forward so his face is hidden in the sheets as it reddens and Donghee’s laughing increases then peters off. 

“He looked a bit endeared, I won’t lie.” He lifts his head so just his eyes are visible amongst the sheets. She continues. “And usually I wouldn’t feed your ego but you look pretty tragic right now.” He lets his head drop again and mutters his thanks in to the cotton. Donghee pats the back of his head and smooths the hair down his neck. “You’ve got the rest of the day to preen yourself like a peacock, if you so desire. Make yourself look good so you feel good. You’re a Lee, big bro. I believe in you.” Donghee stands from Donghyuck’s bed with a final pat to his shoulder and he sits up begrudgingly to see her leave. 

“Thanks, Hee. You’re the best.” 

She turns when she gets to the door. “Oh. I told mum he said you guys could walk together to school and she said if you chicken out, she’ll sell the living-room fan on Gumtree.” She smiles and leaves the room without waiting for a response, leaving the door wide open as she goes.

Donghyuck stares after her, then he flops onto his back, his bottom sheet now cool with aeriated sweat, and restarts his stupid breathing exercise. 

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

After two showers and an emotional argument with Donghee as a last-ditch attempt to secure an afternoon inside, Donghyuck finds himself standing on the bottom step of Mark Lee’s porch with a Tupperware container packed with baked goods and a despondent look on his face. He huffs a strand of hair out of his eyes. Staring at the door, he takes a second to think seriously about how this interaction is likely to go. 

Mark’s mother will probably answer the door, like Donghyuck’s mother does because Donghyuck purposefully ignores the doorbell whenever it rings and Donghee is too scared of getting kidnapped to answer it. Best case scenario, that means he can just spit something polite and short, shove the container into her probably really kind hands and get the fuck home without having to face her son. Worst case scenario, she invites him in with the same smiley eyes Mark has and Donghyuck is bad at saying no so he agrees and Mark is there and Donghyuck has a breakdown. Right. He shuts his eyes and walks up the last two steps of the porch.

He has a fist raised to knock when he hears the sound of feet pattering up to the other side of the door and, too quickly for Donghyuck to make any sort of protective movements, the front door of Mark Lee’s house opens and Mark Lee is right there. Donghyuck squeals a bit. His hand is still hovering in the air, like a mime. He lowers his hand and blinks. 

Mark, who had been looking down at the carpet when opening the door, now looks to face Donghyuck and his expression moves through shock, relief and back to surprise in seconds. Donghyuck looks down at the Tupperware in his hands, then his eyes track quickly to the worn Vans Mark has in his right hand and his socked feet, and then back up to his face. Neither of them have made any verbal noise yet and Donghyuck would maybe like it to stay that way. He can just throw the brownies and hope Mark catches them in his free hand and turn and run. Mark speaks.

“Oh, hey!” He looks away from Donghyuck’s red cheeks and notices what he’s holding. “Oh!” He says again, looking back at Donghyuck’s face. 

“Um. Mum made brownies for you.” Donghyuck braces for the smiley eyes. He holds out the container, a bridge over the gap between them. Mark’s eyes flicker to the container and back to Donghyuck’s eyes as he grabs it from him. 

The second the brownies are safely out of his grasp, Donghyuck feels his body almost seize with desire to hightail it all the way right back to his own house and away from this slightly painful conversation. Mark speaks again.

“Sweet, man.” Mark holds the Tupperware almost protectively into his side. With the Tupperware in one hand, he motions into his house behind him with the hand holding his shoes, making the laces dance in the air and the soles clack together. “Hey, come in and have one. My mum will kill me if I tell her that you brought these over and I didn’t invite you in.” He laughs towards the end of the sentence, a fond laugh, already turning back into his house and expecting the other boy to follow. Donghyuck is all but nailed to the wooden step, still looking at the shoes Mark is holding.

“Aren’t you going somewhere?” He asks, scrambling a bit. He feels suspiciously like he’s being led into the lion’s den. Mark turns to look at him again.

“Yeah, but I could use a brownie.” Mark smiles from where he’s bent a bit to put his shoes down at the end of the hallway and motions for Donghyuck to follow him. He walks out of sight through a doorway and Donghyuck is left standing at the front door staring after him, minorly terrified and absolutely out of his depth and about to be inside of Mark Lee’s house. 

He hears a combination of voices in his head, a chorus of tones warily similar to Donghee and Renjun’s, telling him to stop dithering like an idiot. He hangs his head, half in resignation and half in silent prayer and steps into the Lee residence, following down the hallway and through the door Mark had taken.

It turns out to lead to the kitchen and Mark is reaching into a cupboard full of cups and glasses with his back to Donghyuck, the Tupperware container already open next to the sink. He turns when he hears Donghyuck clear his throat from the doorway, raising his eyebrows politely and holding a glass cup out towards the other boy. 

“Do you want something to drink?” Mark asks, turning to open the fridge and grab a pitcher of cold water as Donghyuck steps closer to the kitchen island between them and tentatively perches on the edge of one of the barstools skirting the counter. 

“Just water sounds good.” Donghyuck replies and Mark nods, filling the glass cup he’d offered to Donghyuck previously and sliding it across the table-top to Donghyuck before filling his own. 

Donghyuck takes 6 sips of his water before Mark has even taken one. He’s parched. 

Mark raises his own cup to his lips and looks up at Donghyuck while he drinks, like he’s composing a question in his head. Donghyuck panic-finishes his glass of water and is left with nothing to do with his hands. 

“Do you still take Music?” Mark asks when he’s swallowed a few mouthfuls from his glass and put it down, moving the brownie container to sit between them before taking one out. He looks curious. Donghyuck reaches for a brownie too, for something to do.

“Yeah.” Donghyuck pauses after swallowing, watching Mark do the same. He attempts a joke. “It’s a lot quieter without you guys in the combined class though. Especially Yukhei. Qian can actually get through teaching a piece without someone going off on a solo.” Mark’s head tilts, probably remembering his friend and basketball co-captain Yukhei Wong being berated by Mr Qian for adding too much ‘personal flare’ to his drum parts just about every time the teacher tried to take them through a new passage. He snorts a laugh. Donghyuck’s smile is small.

“Yukhei’s still bothering him though. Qian teaches senior Music still and has only recently managed to get him to chill by threatening to demote him from drum set to bongos.” Mark giggles throughout and Donghyuck’s smile grows. Mark takes another sip of water once he finishes his brownie and then reaches to eat another.

“Surely Yukhei would just end up with a fist through a bongo. Too much collateral.” Donghyuck laughs, a bit hesitant, but Mark joins and then they’re quiet for a bit as they both chew.

“Yo, these are so good though.” Mark says with his wide, expressive eyes, words around a mouthful of brownie and Donghyuck is so endeared he gets a bit thirsty again. He swallows then hums in agreement, about to reply but the sound of footsteps makes him pause. A person he recognises walks into the kitchen wearing long, flannel pyjama pants and a black t-shirt, holding an empty plate in his hand. Mark swallows the brownie in his mouth.

“Hey, Johnny.” Mark greets. Johnny looks between Mark and Donghyuck, who’re both looking back at him, on his way to the sink to deposit his dish and speaks.

“Weren’t you going out?” He says to Mark, looking between them for objection as he reaches into the Tupperware on the counter and takes a brownie. 

Mark nods. “Yeah, I was about to but then Donghyuck showed up with brownies and I invited him in. Donghyuck, this is Johnny. My older brother. He graduated a couple years ago.” Donghyuck knows this. He’s about to reply with some variation of, ‘nice to meet you,’ when he sees Johnny’s eyes twinkle with something. 

“Combined Music Donghyuck?” Johnny asks, lips twitching into a cheeky smile as he looks at his brother, who seems to tense a little. Johnny looks at Donghyuck, whose eyes are wide as if he can absorb the information he’s missing from this interaction with the aid of some extra millimetres, and back at Mark. His smile grows. Donghyuck feels his stomach sink a little.

Mark looks away from his brother and starts on his third brownie. He makes a noise of assent with his eyes cast down into the pile of brownies and Johnny chuckles a little. He pats a placating hand over his younger brother’s shoulder as he reaches for a second brownie and moves back past them out of the kitchen to return to wherever he came from.

“Nice. Have fun. Good to meet you, Donghyuck.” He throws a smile back over his shoulder at Donghyuck, who can’t respond with anything more than a meek, “You too,” because he is confused. 

Mark coughs a bit and Donghyuck turns to look back at him. His face is pinked and Donghyuck is very confused. Mark takes a big gulp of water to push down the chunk of brownie that must be lodged in his throat and Donghyuck is staring. He needs to go. 

Donghyuck stands from the barstool and clears his throat. Mark’s eyes flick up to his face and widen.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you from anything. I should have just dropped off the box and let you go.” Donghyuck shifts on his feet and blinks hard in embarrassment, because he feels like he’s completely misread the situation even though he was trying really hard not to read into anything at all. Mark’s flailing hands are back.

“No, no. It’s fine, you don’t have to rush. He just likes bothering me.” The flush travels down Mark’s neck and Donghyuck isn’t sure what he’s being punished for. He turns and looks quickly at the doorway that will lead him back to the front door, then back to Mark again. 

“My mum’s probably expecting me back anyway, she probably thinks I’ve taken the brownies for myself. She never lets me eat any when she’s making them. Says I’m disturbing the process.” Donghyuck tries on a smile but it feels a bit tight. Mark’s answering chuckle is awkward too but his shoulders ease slightly from where they’re practically hiked to his ears.

“Yeah. Well, thank you for the brownies.” Mark’s hands motion a bit awkwardly to said brownies and Donghyuck’s eyes follow even though he knows exactly what the brownies look like. He just doesn’t really want to look him in the face. “I’m sure my mum will be over at some point to say thank you herself. And I’ll return the Tupperware to you.” He speaks a bit like he’s reading dot points. Donghyuck nods.

“Yep. Alright. See you?” It comes out like a question except it’s a stupid one. Mark’s head moves like it’s on a spring. His eyes are still very wide.

Donghyuck takes a step backwards into the doorway of the kitchen and all but speed walks down the hallway to the front door once he’s out of Mark’s sight, not stopping until he’s got the door closed behind him and he’s made it back down the porch stairs and past the grass of the front yard. In his rush to leave, he imagines a quietly distraught sigh from the kitchen and a loud guffaw from another room in the house.

It feels like he doesn’t breathe until he collapses face down onto his bed after just about running across the road, up the driveway of his house and right up the stairs as Donghee laughs and his mother yells after him that he’s forgotten the fan again. 

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

He doesn’t waste any time on Renjun’s porch steps like he did at Mark’s, stomping up them so hard that the wood groans and he gets spikes of ground shock up his shins. He’s breathing quite heavily and his eyes are sore. Renjun’s younger brother Chenle opens the door when Donghyuck raps on it, and then scrunches his nose.

“Jesus Christ. Did you sprint here?” Chenle leans on the door jamb as he scrutinises his brother’s best friend, blocking the entrance of the house. Donghyuck sighs and wills tears to his eyes. 

“Let me in or you might actually have to deal with me crying on your doorstep.” Chenle makes a sharp noise of protest and moves instantly. Donghyuck blinks back the wetness triumphantly but doesn’t feel much better for it, pinching Chenle on the arm as he pushes past. Chenle squeals right into his ear and it feels like he’s earned it. 

“He’s upstairs. Jeno’s there too though, so if this is about your embarrassing crush, you’re out of luck.” Chenle says apathetically, walking behind Donghyuck into the living room and throwing himself back into his worn groove on the couch while Donghyuck continues up the stairs to Renjun’s room.

“Yeah, I’m pretty fucking unlucky. You don’t have to tell me that.” Donghyuck huffs to himself as he stomps up the staircase, knocking his usual tune onto Renjun’s closed door before throwing it open and groaning loudly to announce his entrance. 

Renjun and Jeno both look up from where they’re snuggled around Renjun’s laptop, unworried. Actually, Jeno looks a bit worried but only because he hasn’t become as accustomed to Donghyuck’s boy-themed dramatism. Yet. 

“So it went great? Did you guys kiss?” Renjun says, watching Donghyuck set his hard gaze on him right before dropping himself over their legs on the end of the bed. Jeno makes a confused noise, a bit like a dog. 

“Who’s Hyuck kissing?” He asks, his tone imploring. Donghyuck lifts his head from where its pressing down onto someone’s ankle to look at Renjun again, daring him to blow his cover, right as Renjun turns to his boyfriend and simply says, “Mark Lee.” Jeno makes another noise and Donghyuck groans again, his forehead now resting on the bone of someone’s shin. 

“Except I didn’t kiss him and I probably never will because Johnny was there and Mark had obviously said something mean to him about me because he knew who I was and Mark got all awkward and-.“ He cuts himself off with a third groan right when Jeno makes his third noise. 

Renjun shuffles around on the bed and the shin Donghyuck is leaning on gets pulled out from underneath his face so he falls right into the sheets as Renjun tucks his legs under his body. Donghyuck wriggles around until he’s lying in a foetal position where Renjun’s legs had been.

“Slow down. What do you mean Mark had said something mean about you? I thought you said you didn’t speak much in combined Music? Why would he bitch about someone he didn’t know to his older brother? That makes no sense.” Renjun says, his eyebrows furrowing as he sets his hand on a distressed Donghyuck’s head. Jeno is silent. Donghyuck sniffs.

“I don’t know. Johnny came downstairs and Mark introduced me then Johnny got this look on his face and asked if I was the Donghyuck from combined Music. Then Mark got all weird, like Johnny had revealed something by having heard of me before. And what else could Mark have possibly been saying if not that I’m the ugliest thing he’s ever seen and even being in the same room as me made him feel like he was going to vomit.” He stops and looks up at Renjun and Jeno, the former looking inquisitive and the latter looking a bit nauseous himself. Donghyuck scrunches his eyes shut. “And Jeno’s pulling a face which means Mark has said something to him too.” 

Jeno makes a frightened noise and Donghyuck opens his eyes again, looking up to see Renjun has a pointed stare trained on his boyfriend. 

“He hasn’t. I just- I don’t feel well.” The words trip over each other on the way out of his mouth. Donghyuck whines and Renjun makes a noise of sarcastic disbelief. Jeno’s eyes widen. “Didn’t you guys have that end of year concert for combined Music class that everyone’s families were allowed to go to? Couldn’t Johnny have remembered you from then?” Jeno says, his tone wavering. Donghyuck pulls himself into a sitting position mirroring Renjun’s and inspects Jeno’s expression. He sighs.

“He laughed though. Why would he laugh if he’d just remembered my name from a concert program? Was I that bad?” Donghyuck looks down at his hands knotted in his lap. One of Renjun’s comes to rest on his knee. 

“No, Hyuckie. You were great. Better than great.” He pauses. “I don’t think he was laughing at you. You said Mark got weird afterwards? Maybe Mark had mentioned how good he thought you were when you sang at the concert. He told your mum that too, didn’t he?” Donghyuck lifts his gaze to meet Renjun’s and, against his better judgment, lets some of the optimism in Renjun’s eyes and voice seep into his mind. He hums. The wrinkle between Jeno’s eyebrows has smoothed. 

“Okay.” He murmurs, pacified for a second then his head drops. “I literally ran home right after Johnny left the room. Even on the off-chance Mark didn’t think I was an absolute weirdo before, he definitely does now.” His lips sit together in a glum pout and Renjun and Jeno both wear similar sympathetic features. 

“Don’t beat yourself up about it. You’ve still got every morning walk to school to fix that.” Renjun’s voice lilts at the end, teasing. Donghyuck rolls his eyes and Jeno laughs softly.

“I wish I could be bothered to fill my tank up with fuel as often as I’d need to if I drove to school. Driving would eliminate so many of my problems. Walking makes me sweaty and I don’t want Mark Lee to see me sweaty ever again.”

“Work on having more achievable goals.” Renjun says as he shimmies down the bed, now horizontal again with an arm twined around Jeno’s bicep and his head on his shoulder. 

“I think you’re good.” Jeno says, looking at Donghyuck with the same hope that Renjun always does when Donghyuck gets in a slump. “It’s just Mark.”

Renjun’s laugh tinkles like a wind chime right as Chenle yells up the stairs at them that he needs money to order pizza. 

“Angel, that’s the whole problem.”

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

Donghyuck spends the next 3 weeks of his life cycling between playing PUBG in his own house and on Chenle’s laptop in Renjun’s. By the end of the third week, he’s become so consumed by his kill streak and the goal of just beating Jeno fucking once, that he’s forgotten about the looming promise of his return to school. That is until Sunday, when he’s sat on Renjun’s bed after Chenle had let him in, waiting for Renjun and Jeno to get home from the store, and Jeno walks in swinging a plastic bag around like his own personal helicopter propellers. A plastic bag which he then upends on the floor next to the bed with a heavy sigh, now standing at the foot of a high pile of packets of BIC pens, pencils, erasers, a protractor and notebooks. Both Donghyuck and Jeno stare at the mess he’s made. Renjun closes the door behind him as he enters the room.

“Why the fuck could you possibly need so many pens?” Donghyuck asks the pile, feeling like he’s missing something. He points a socked toe at the protractor. “And what the fuck is that? Have you taken up a new hobby? Architecture?” Jeno laughs a snort and Renjun sits on the bed with enough force that Donghyuck bounces a bit and his feet stamp into the floor. A packet of plain white erasers slides from the top of the pile to the floor with a quick whoosh. 

“Have you not been school shopping yet? We need a protractor for Maths this year. And school starts tomorrow.” A noise of alarm pings in Donghyuck’s head. He freezes. 

Distantly he remembers, a week or so prior, standing in the kitchen with glazed eyes and his arm just about up to the elbow in a big bag of Doritos. As he chewed and thought about the new skins he was saving to buy for his PUBG character, his mother walked into the kitchen and asked him if he needed a new lunch box. He remembers thinking absently that she was making another jibe at him being apparently unable to put his food and drink into crockery before consuming it and hummed a noise in response. He also remembers Donghee walking into his room to put a pile of spiral notebooks on his desk while he was in the middle of a particularly heated round Battlegrounds and not even turning to look at her. School. That makes sense.

He groans and throws himself backwards on the bed.

“Oh my god. How did I forget?” He whines, Renjun laughing at him and Jeno working on sorting the pile on the floor.

“You know, scientists say that traumatic events can lead to people specifically forgetting details about related things. Maybe you’re so stressed about walking to school with Mark that you’ve subconsciously convinced yourself school doesn’t exist.” Jeno says, tapping a pack of pens on Donghyuck’s knee and Renjun laughs louder. Donghyuck whines again.

“God.” He sits up and turns to Renjun next to him, grabbing his arm at the wrist and pulling the back of his hand to his own forehead. “Am I warm? I feel warm. Am I having a panic attack?” He rushes and Renjun takes back control of his arm to smack him with it. 

“You’re making it a bigger deal than it needs to be, I swear. Mark’s nice. Jen wouldn’t be friends with him if he wasn’t.” Jeno hums in earnest agreement and Renjun pats his boyfriend’s shin with a socked foot. Donghyuck slides down off the bed onto the floor. 

“I know he’s nice, Renjun. I am aware.” Donghyuck grumbles, in his own pile of despair right next to the pile of stationary Jeno is working on taming. Jeno breathes heavy out of his nose in a laugh and Renjun hums. 

For the next 12 hours, it’s like Donghyuck’s brain is trying to make up for all the time it hasn’t spent thinking about walking to school with Mark Lee. He sets an alarm for 2 hours earlier than he usually would for a normal school day and plans to spend all that extra time doing his hair or just sitting and staring at the wall to try and find some composure. By the time he’s about to put his phone down and turn off his bedroom light to go to sleep, the idea of waking up feels about as cataclysmic as taking a trip to Mars. 

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

Of course, he sleeps in. Because he’s chronically unlucky and he’s obviously done something really awful to someone without his knowledge to deserve all of this karma. When Donghee, already wearing her uniform, flicks him hard on the forehead to wake him up and tells him that Mark Lee is already standing in their living room talking to their mother about band camp, Donghyuck stops himself from ripping his own hair out from the root by trying to figure out what he could have done to make the universe hate him so much. While he attempts to do his tie and brush his teeth at the same time, he decides it must have something to do with Renjun. 

Approximately 6 minutes later, he’s hopping down the stairs with one sock on, his school bag and the other sock in one hand and both of his shoes in his other. Right as he gets to the bottom, he drops his sock while trying to put his bag on his back then drops his shoes as he flusters and has to suck his bottom lip into his mouth to stop from either screaming or crying. His mother’s head sticks out from the kitchen as he’s bent over trying to juggle all of his shit. She looks at him like he looks as desperate as he feels.

“I invited your friend in, didn’t want him waiting around outside for you. He’s in the kitchen.” She says softly, walking over to him to smooth down the back of his hair where his collar is making it stick out. He leans into her hand for a second then slumps onto the last stair to work on his feet.

In the kitchen, once Donghyuck makes it in there with his bag on his back and both his socks and shoes on, Mark Lee is holding a glass of orange juice, looking kind of out of his depth. Donghyuck thinks he looks a bit like he’s been photoshopped in next to the fridge. He startles, but seems to calm when he sees Donghyuck walk in. The Tupperware container the brownies were in sits clean on the worktop. 

Donghyuck mumbles a good morning, trying to use his powers of telepathy to get the other boy to take his eyes off him as he walks around the counter to get his own orange juice out of the fridge. He realises a bit nervously that Mark drinking that very orange juice implies an almost kiss, since there’s sure to be some of Donghyuck’s spit left on the bottle from the amount of times he’s drank right out of it. He hopes that Mark isn’t very good at telepathy either. His hands shake as he gets a glass to pour the juice into. 

“Good, uh. Good morning. I didn’t mean to, like, ambush you. I just didn’t get the chance to ask about walking together when you came over and then didn’t have any other opportunity. I thought about coming over to ask but that probably would have been weird and, yeah.” He sounds nervous. Donghyuck drains his orange juice like a shot and blinks over at Mark. He looks nervous too. Donghyuck wants to comfort him. 

“No, it’s cool. I’m sorry you had to wait down here. I swear I set an alarm, I just-,“ he pauses. “slept through it.” Donghyuck motions sheepishly to his messy head of hair, not nearly as tamed as he would have hoped it to be. Mark follows his hand with his eyes, looking mollified. 

“No problem.” Smiley eyes. “Bro, your sister’s kind of scary though.” Mark says, smiley eyes crinkling around the corners, a little frightened. Donghyuck smiles and puts his cup in the sink, motioning for Mark to do the same with his own empty cup.

“I know.” He moves back around the kitchen counter to stand back in the doorway and lifts a brow when he turns to face Mark again. “Don’t worry. She walks to school with the neighbour’s kid, Minjung, I think? You haven’t signed yourself up for a package deal. Just me.” Mark laughs. He looks comforted. Donghyuck smiles. 

“That’s good enough for me.” Mark says, smiling around the words as he walks over to Donghyuck in the door way. Donghyuck feels a bit of his confidence slip and turns his back to Mark in case his cheeks heat up. He hums in response.

“Mum, we’re going! See you later.” He yells into the house, expecting her to be upstairs and jumping a bit when she materialises from behind the living room door down the hall. Like she’d been eavesdropping. Donghyuck rolls his eyes. 

She gives him a tiny raise of her shoulders in a shrug and walks towards the pair, getting on the tips of her toes to kiss Donghyuck’s forehead. His face warms and he steps back with an affronted noise. Mark laughs. His mother pulls a face and moves forward, swooping in quick to snatch a miss-aimed kiss on the nose before Donghyuck can duck out of the way again. Mark hiccups through a louder laugh when she steps away, winning smile on her face. Her expression settles.

“Okay, baby. Have a good day.” She says, smiling placidly at her son, who grumbles and rubs hard at his nose. “You too, lovely Mark!” She turns to the other boy and makes grabby hands at his cheeks, which are already pulled up in a big smile as he essentially giggles in the hallway of Donghyuck’s house. Everyone in this family is out to get Donghyuck. Please. 

“God. We are going. Right now.” He grabs one of the straps of Mark’s backpack, forgetting he’s supposed to be hesitant around him for a second in a sheer haste to get out of this situation. He starts walking them both to the door as Mark stumbles behind him, still laughing. “And I’m never coming home. You’re embarrassing. I’ll live on the streets.”

His mother laughs from where she’s stood as Donghyuck wrestles with lock on the front door, trying desperately to get it open before she can say anything else. “You have to come home, Hyuckie! Your sister would miss you too much.” She says, hands on her hips and making no move to help with the jammed door. 

“I fucking would not.” Donghee yells down the stairs from her room. Donghyuck finally gets the fucking door open and yanks Mark out after him, closing the door hard behind him. He leans his body weight back on it. Mark snickers.

“Is your mum always like that?” He laughs, looking through the window in the front door where Donghyuck’s mother is waving at them from her spot in the hallway with a big grin. Mark waves back. Donghyuck sighs. He’s been doing a lot of sighing recently. 

“I don’t want to talk about it. Please get a move on before she offers to walk with us.” He starts down the driveway, not looking back at his mother or Mark but he knows Mark is following because he can hear his laughter trailing behind him. He slows down once he gets to the end of the driveway and out of sight from his mother, unless she’s got binoculars out or something (which he wouldn’t put past her), and waits for Mark to catch up. They walk down the road towards the school silently for a bit, 3 or so minutes of Mark kicking rocks and Donghyuck staring at his shoes and the weeds that pop up between the cement of the path.

“Thanks for agreeing to walk with me.” Mark says. “Especially after how weird you must have thought I was when you came over. I swear Johnny didn’t mean anything, he just-,” his hands start doing the flailing thing they do and Donghyuck feels the need to calm him surge through him again. He cuts him off.

“It’s fine, I promise. Jeno said he’d probably remembered my name from the combined Music concert. That you might have mentioned me or something.” He stops for a second and looks sideways at Mark, who’s slowed a bit and isn’t looking at him. “Good things, I hope?” He really does. 

“Oh. You spoke about it with Jeno?” Mark asks, his eyes a bit wide. He kicks a stone hard. Donghyuck’s eyebrows draw together. “Is that all he said?” Mark looks worried. Donghyuck is confused again.

“Yeah.” He watched Mark kick another piece of gravel and it whistles down the path ahead of them. “I mean, you didn’t actually talk shit about me to your older brother, did you?” His stomach churns. Mark stops walking so Donghyuck does too and Mark has turned his whole body to face him, quick as lightening. 

“No! No, of course not. Oh my god. No. I didn’t. I wouldn’t.” His hands swing in the air and his eyes are panicked. “He- yeah, I told Johnny to look forward to your performance that night. I’d heard you practicing in the rooms at school and knew it was going to be good. He just doesn’t have any tact.” Donghyuck believes him. Mark looks down at his shoes, then back up to Donghyuck’s face. “I’m really sorry he made you uncomfortable enough that you went to Jeno Lee for advice, of all people.” Mark cracks a tentative smile. Donghyuck feels like there’s a question that hasn’t been answered but he’s relieved. He smiles a little.

“Well, I was actually asking Renjun for advice but Jeno just so happened to be there. I guess he was helpful though, against all odds apparently.” Donghyuck starts walking again and Mark makes a noise of understanding, sniggers and joins him. 

“Right, Jeno’s staying at Renjun’s at the moment, isn’t he? How’s Renjun handling that?” Mark asks, back to kicking his feet as he walks. Donghyuck hums high and laughs.

“They’re practically joined at the hip. He’s loving it.” Mark laughs. “He just pretends Jeno bothers him to satisfy his biological urge to complain. The planet would probably fall right off its axis if Renjun admitted that though.” Mark keeps giggling and nods. He looks at Donghyuck sideways, who’s already looking at him, and a lock of hair falls into his eyes. Donghyuck looks away and his smile falters a bit. 

“That’s good, then. Jeno’s literally ass over tit for him. I still remember him coming into basketball practice every day after Student Leadership with this dumb look on his face. Thank god he even barely gained back his ability to concentrate on anything but Renjun once they sorted their shit. We would have been toast in the finals.” Mark laughs, a bit self-deprecating and Donghyuck frowns.

“Shut up, you guys would have been fine. Didn’t you score, like, 75% of the points that game anyway?” He says back. He can see the gates of the school at the bottom of the road and he almost wishes they didn’t have to part when they arrived. 

“Yeah,” Mark rubs a hand across the back of his neck like he had on Donghyuck’s front lawn weeks ago and looks down at his feet, “didn’t have anyone to kiss when we won though.” Donghyuck feels his heart stop beating for a fraction of a second. He fights to keep his legs moving. Instantly, the school gates feel like the finish line of a race. He doesn’t know how to respond. He wishes Mark hadn’t of said that. 

“I’m sure Mina Kang wouldn’t have minded. Or maybe she would have. You should ask before you do it just in case.” Mina Kang is one of the cheerleaders. He only knows her and Mark are friends because he’s spent the entirety of every basketball game he’s ever attended staring at Mark both on and off the field and has seen them laughing together at halftime. He feels like breaking into a jog. Mark looks at him quickly, then looks away and hums contemplatively. They’re almost at school. 

A couple metres from the gates, he’s moving like he’s vying for first place. Mark slows a bit next to him and wraps a hand around his elbow, forcing Donghyuck to stop. He turns back to Mark, who looks up at him through his eyelashes.

“Would you want to walk home with me?” It comes out a bit strained. Donghyuck blinks.

“I have homework to do in the library after class.” 

Mark’s head tilts up so they’re head on. “It’s the first day.”

Donghyuck flusters.

“I have Lee for Maths. Every day is a homework day.” He maintains eye contact even though he’d probably rather actually remove his eyeballs. He watches Mark’s shoulder’s sag and the boy’s eyes go back to his shoes. The hand on Donghyuck’s elbow loosens. “But. It could probably wait until I get home?”

The effect is instant. Mark reanimates like someone’s hit play on him again and he looks into Donghyuck’s eyes with his smiley ones. 

“Okay.” He squeezes Donghyuck’s arm then drops his hand. “I’ll meet you here? I have Bio in the labs so I might be a bit late.” He says, stepping through the school gates and over in the direction of the sports hall, walking backwards to keep talking to Donghyuck. 

“That’s fine. I’ll- I’ll be here, I guess.” Mark’s eyes twinkle and his grin is sunny. Donghyuck soaks it in like a solar panel. 

“Awesome. Bye, Donghyuck! Have a good day!” Mark waves for a second until Donghyuck raises his own hand and waves stiltedly back, his smile growing before he turns and jogs off in across the school lawns to the hall. 

“Bye?” Donghyuck mumbles after him, lowering his hand. He looks around to see if anyone had witnessed what had just happened. No one is looking at him.

Donghyuck feels a little bit like he’s just landed back on Earth after a trip around the galaxy. Maybe Mars. He rights his backpack on his shoulders and trudges off to homeroom, mind full of smiling, starry eyes. 

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

Renjun laughs so loud that Jeno jolts a bit around his own laugh when Donghyuck tells them about his morning at lunchtime. 

“You-.” He draws a deep breath and starts laughing again. “How are you so unlucky? It’s almost statistically impossible for so many things to be going wrong for you.” People from the tables around them look at them because of the noise they’re making. Donghyuck lowers his head and reaches over the cafeteria table between them to punch Renjun in the shoulder rather than responding. 

“Why did you tell him you had homework? You don’t do your homework.” Jeno asks, putting his cookies in front of Renjun as said boy sighs out the last dregs of his laughter, not because he doesn’t like them but because he knows they’re Renjun’s favourite. Donghyuck leans over and flicks the piece of watermelon that Renjun had been about to eat when Donghyuck he began his recount of his awful day, and had dropped onto the table when he’d started laughing, right off the edge of the table and into Renjun’s lap. Renjun’s squeal appeases him. 

“I do not know, Jeno. And I will be taking no further questions.” He says matter-of-factly, his hands clasped like a politician on the table in front of him and Renjun starts laughing again. Donghyuck snatches the container of watermelon right out of his hands and shoves a piece into his own mouth, making Renjun stop laughing to yell in indignation. More heads turn towards their table. 

“At least you can only go up from here. Rock bottom isn’t the best place to start but it’s a start.” Renjun says, giving up on trying to fight his watermelon back and sitting back down with his legs crossed underneath him on the bench. Donghyuck glares.

“Also, at least he’s been pretty consistently embarrassing himself too? You just keep one-upping each other.” Jeno laughs and Renjun giggles. Donghyuck ponders that.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. It could be worse. Barely, but there’s room for it.” Donghyuck says and nods. Jeno nods back at him like a beagle. 

“So you’re gonna walk home with him?” Renjun asks, starting on Jeno’s cookies but not before giving him a kiss on the temple in thanks. Jeno brightens. Donghyuck pokes at the bread of his sandwich.

“Yeah, I don’t see how I could say no. I don’t want to be mean, because I really do want to hang out with him but I-. I don’t know if it’s worth all the emotional hassle? Especially to just be friends with him.” He makes half-moon shaped indents in the crust with his thumb nail.

“You only want to be friends with him? I was under the impression you wanted to exchange vows on a beach in the winter time.” Jeno says and Donghyuck looks up at him, unamused. 

“Shut up.” He scans his eyes over the crowds of people in the cafeteria to look out of one of the far windows into the midday summer sun, watching the trees outside sway in the breeze. “It would be too windy to get married on a beach in winter. My lips would get chapped.” Renjun snorts.

“No, but seriously. Why just friends?” Renjun asks with curious eyes. Donghyuck looks at him and squints. 

“I told you I didn’t want to sweat in front of him and you told me to set lower expectations. Now, you’re telling me to entertain the idea of getting to date him?” He hums sarcastically. Renjun tilts his head.

“You know I was joking. You just chose to take me seriously because this is something that you’re already telling yourself you can’t think about. And why is that?” Of course, he’s right. 

“Renjun.” Donghyuck levels his best friend with a stare. “Right now, I’m telling myself I’m only trying to be his friend and I can’t even handle that without holding my breath slightly whenever he’s near me. How would you suppose I’d even go about trying to date him?” 

“With less optimism.” Renjun replies sarcastically. Jeno snickers. Renjun’s eyes soften a bit. “Hyuck, he isn’t a god or something. You don’t have to treat him like he’s going to smite you if you don’t kiss the ground he walks on. He’s just a kid like you.” His gaze is searching for something on Donghyuck’s face so Donghyuck looks away.

“I know. It’s not about that.” Except it kind of is and Donghyuck is a liar. 

When Donghyuck was in 8th grade, Mark Lee sat next to him in combined Music. On the first day of class, Donghyuck got there a couple minutes early and stood outside the room for a second. 

Renjun wasn’t in this class. In his 13-year-old mind, this made walking into Mr Qian’s music room about as daunting as jumping out of a plane without a parachute. Donghyuck is scared of heights. And people his age that haven’t known him since he was still eating soil out of his mother’s plant pots. He’s peering nervously through one of the windows into the classroom to scope out the space, ducking out of sight every time Mr Qian looks anywhere near where he’s stood, when he’s tapped on the shoulder. He screams.

He spins and a boy with a mouthful of braces and eyes too big for his face stares back at him, holding a guitar case in his hand. Donghyuck thinks the other boy looks a bit too surprised considering he’s not the one who’s just been scared half to death. The boy asks if he’s okay.

Donghyuck nods. So does the other boy. They look at each other for a second.

“I don’t have any friends in this class.” Donghyuck says, his voice small. He just about swallows his tongue.

“Me neither. Did you want to-,” the boy breathes out. “Would you want to sit with me?” Donghyuck feels the little knot of panic in his tummy start to unravel. He nods.

“Yeah.” He tells his feet.

Donghyuck watches the boy’s eyes go round and crinkly. He doesn’t have to look down to the metallic glint of his mouth to know he’s smiling. The boy’s face changes when he smiles. He glows. 

“Good.” The boy replies, still smiling. He looks down at his feet, abashed, just as the bell rings for the start of class.

Donghyuck doesn’t know the boy’s name until Mr Qian calls the roll when class starts and the boy answers to an English name. Donghyuck has an English name too, a result of his and Renjun’s obsession with Willy Wonka when they were seven. When they were ten, Renjun told him with a flick to the arm that Donghyuck wasn’t allowed over to his house anymore if he didn’t promise to stop calling him Augustus, but Donghyuck didn’t mind his own name. Charlie. He just goes by Donghyuck just because he doesn’t know any Asian kids at their school that go by English names. He tells himself he’s only remembering this boy’s name for the novelty of it. 

Mark Lee. 

They talk sparingly for the rest of the first semester of the year. Mark discovers that one of the guys from the basketball team he’s just joined is in the class with him and is gone from his seat next to Donghyuck by the end of the first week of school. Donghyuck tries not to be hurt. Donghyuck also tries not to get caught staring during class, watching Mark laugh with Yukhei and all the other friends he makes. Donghyuck makes his own friends but he prefers to sit alone. He watches Mark strum his guitar and sing to himself across the room when Mr Qian gives them free time and wishes he was sat closer. Always a step too far away. 

By the time the basketball team are winning their last game of the term, Mark’s braces are off and he has what Donghyuck would term a fanbase. By the end of the year, Mark only smiles at him in passing with his smiley eyes but wishes him good luck before every performance he does. He doesn’t do many because he’s cripplingly insecure about people throwing tomatoes at him in disgust or something yet Mark always tells him to break a leg. 

They never quite make it to ‘friends.’ Which is why, when Donghyuck feels like they grew apart, he reminds himself that they never grew together. Just a short act of kindness. Donghyuck has a forgettable face. Mark has better things to worry about. He doesn’t hold it against him. 

Donghyuck tells Renjun that it isn’t like that and he intends to have him believe it. Renjun raises his eyebrows but doesn’t say anything.

Renjun changes the topic to something casual, the fact that Jeno’s already broken his protractor and he hasn’t even had his Math class yet, when Mark Lee walks up behind them and claps Jeno on the shoulder. He’s got a basketball held to his hip and his eyes glimmer as he greets Jeno with some kind of weird bro-handshake then says a polite hello to Renjun, who nods one back at him. Mark then looks at Donghyuck. Smiley eyes. Donghyuck tries on a close-mouth smile but guesses it looks a bit odd when Renjun has to shut his eyes in exasperation where he’s facing away from Mark. Mark notices what Donghyuck is holding.

“Bro! Can I have a piece? I love watermelon.” He’s around to Donghyuck’s side of the table in seconds. Donghyuck nods once while looking up at him, holds Renjun’s container of watermelon out and doesn’t say a word. Mark takes a piece and puts it in his mouth, just about squealing with joy. Jeno laughs. “Thanks, Hyuck!” It’s a testament to how wide Renjun’s eyes must go that Donghyuck sees the whites of them glinting out of the corner of his eye. Mark looks at Jeno.

“The bell’s about to go, you’ve got a free period now right? The guys and I were gonna go out to the hoop to hang. You in?” He tosses the basketball between his hands and Jeno makes a noise of affirmation, standing up from the table to put his bag on his back. When the bell rings seconds later, he bends to kiss Renjun who leans up to meet him. Donghyuck can feel Mark’s staring into his (Renjun’s) container of watermelon and offers more to him. Mark makes a noise of delight. 

After Mark and Jeno have left, Renjun and Donghyuck stand from the table themselves. Renjun is doing a bad job at maintaining his poker face. He swings his bag on and wiggles to get it comfortable on the planes of his shoulders.

“Ready, ‘Hyuck’?” Renjun snickers, moving to Donghyuck’s side of the table. They have History together next period, so Donghyuck is stuck with him. He glares at Renjun’s gleeful expression.

“Whenever you are, Augustus.” The smile slides right off of Renjun’s face and he makes to lunge at Donghyuck who, having anticipated violence, nips out of the way and off in the direction of their History classroom, laughing as he goes. Renjun chases him, screaming about the holy sacredness of promises and lifetime bans from the Huang household. They get to History out of breath.

They don’t talk about the nickname. Donghyuck sure does think about it though. 

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

Donghyuck’s last class of the day is a free period. Usually, he’d spend the time starting on his homework but he takes one look at the first question of his Maths sheet and puts the paper back in his bag. Instead, he pulls his phone and headphones out the pocket of his uniform shorts and listens to music. He keeps them in for the hour and doesn’t bother to take them out while he’s leaning his elbows on the fence of the school after the dismissal bell has gone to wait for Mark, watching parents drive their kids home. After only a minute or so, he’s humming along to the last chorus of D.O’s ‘Tell Me (What is Love)’ when Mark appears at his side. Donghyuck takes out a headphone.

“What are you listening to?” Mark greets him with, looking from his removed ear bud to Donghyuck’s eyes and back again. 

Donghyuck holds down the volume button on his phone to increase it and holds out the headphone. Mark leans in closer to make sense of the instruments. His face opens in recognition in a moment. 

“Oh! Man, I love this song. You should hear me knock it out in the car. Kyungsoo-ssi would be proud.” Mark says it like he means ‘Kyungsoo-ssi’ would rather he was deaf. 

He laughs along and pulls out his other ear bud, put them and his phone back in his pocket. “I’m sure he would. He’s probably sick of being around people who don’t make you want to leave the room when they sing. A change would be nice for him.” Donghyuck actually thinks Mark has a really nice voice. He only says it because he thinks it will keep Mark laughing. It does.

“Exactly, bro. That’s what I’m saying.” Mark says, through giggles. Donghyuck smiles and they start walking.

“I thought you said I’d have to wait for you. I’d only just got here when you did.” He tries to make conversation.

“Oh, yeah. I asked Moon if I could leave early to run down here because I was meeting you and he let me go. Like, instantly.” Mark laughs. He’s kicking stones again.

“God, you’ve got the teachers under your spell too? Why would you even bother going to class if you could probably just skip all day and still get recorded for being there?” Donghyuck asks, laughing a bit in disbelief. Donghyuck gets told to be quiet by his teachers when he so much as sneezes. 

Mark pulls a face that says he doesn’t even notice the 7th graders that stare at him in awe when he walks through school holding his basketball.

“What do you mean? I’m just nice to him.” Mark looks at Donghyuck, almost worriedly. Donghyuck’s eyebrows furrow further. Mark isn’t speaking the way he is because he’s arrogant, but because he’s oblivious. 

“Mark, you have to know that everyone likes you.” He’s trying hard not to sound like he’s reprimanding him, because he really doesn’t want to hurt his feelings. But Mark must be dense. “Like, I’m sure even if you screamed in the face of the next junior you saw right now, you’d still have at least 11 love letters to sort through when you open your locker in the morning.” Mark’s eyes widen. Donghyuck thinks he’s finally gotten through to him.

“How do you know about the love letters?” Mark says. Donghyuck blinks.

“It was a joke.” He blinks again. “You actually get love letters?” Mark’s cheeks go crimson.

“Only sometimes. Like, when we win games or stuff. They’re never signed so I just thought it was the team showing their appreciation for me? Captain stuff? Except, I got one today saying I had really nice hands.” His voice trails off in abstract perplexment, like he’s only just now properly thinking about it. 

“Alright. So probably not a team mate then. Unless they’re in love with you.” Donghyuck says slowly, making sure they’re on the same page. Mark nods, looking a bit mystified. “Do you get it now?”

“I think so.” Donghyuck nods and they’re still walking. They’re silent for a bit and Mark seems to be thinking.

“Do you-,” he pauses, “do you know why? Like. What did I do?” Mark looks up at Donghyuck from a bit beneath his lashes, fluttery with insecurity. Donghyuck has to swallow really hard so that he doesn’t say out loud that he loves him.

“I mean. You said you’re nice to people, right?” Donghyuck pauses, half to stall and half to give Mark a chance to nod. Mark nods. “That’s probably part of it. The rest of it is probably the basketball thing. Teenagers are into cute, polite guys who are good at sports.” Donghyuck is teenagers. He feels like he’s being transparent. Mark nods again and is quiet for another second. Donghyuck thinks he’s safe. 

“You think I’m cute?” Mark says, looking at him with soft, questioning eyes. Donghyuck flusters.

“No- I was talking from the perspective of-,” Mark’s face changes to one of mirth and Donghyuck scowls. “Stop it.” He says with gritted teeth, pushing Mark into one of the bushes lining the path they’re walking down. Mark laughs louder.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” He pats Donghyuck’s shoulder, still laughing and Donghyuck grumbles. “Isn’t it weird though? I’m just me.” He’s watching the cars drive past them down the road. Donghyuck is watching him.

“Yeah.” Donghyuck replies, but not to the question. Mark turns to look at him, expecting him to continue. “It’s weird, I mean. But you hadn’t noticed, so it doesn’t make you uncomfortable. And if it does now you know about it, I’m sure if you just left a note on your locker asking people to stop with the letters at least, they’d get the memo. I guess it is what it is.” Mark nods and looks back at the road. Donghyuck looks at his shoes.

They walk quietly and make small talk for the rest of the way, Mark pointing out dogs that he spots in the backseats of cars to Donghyuck and Donghyuck cooing while Mark giggles. 

When they get to Mark’s house, the closer one to school but only by a couple meters, Mark looks about to say his goodbye when he makes a noise of recollection and claps. 

“Jeno told me in free period today that Student Leadership is thinking about having a talent show this sem! You should do it!” Mark looks so excited and Donghyuck tries to figure out a way to tell him he’s absolutely not going to be doing it without taking that look off his face. 

He hums with non-committal. Mark jumps to convince him further. “Come on! You’d do so well! You deserve to get love letters in your locker cause of your great voice, man.” Donghyuck tries not to blush about the last part. 

“I’ll think about it.” He says, and Mark practically vibrates.

“Great! Awesome. You really should.” He nods resolutely. Donghyuck nods back, less sure. 

Mark looks behind him to his house, where there is a suspiciously Johnny-shaped shadow being cast on the curtain of the front room by the afternoon sun and two brown eyes staring at the two of them, widening and disappearing behind the curtain when Mark turns. Mark huffs. “I gotta go but do think about it.” He starts walking backwards towards the door. “I’ll tell your mum I’d rather wait out front if she invites me inside in the morning?” 

“That would be fantastic.” Donghyuck replies. “Please wish me luck facing her again.” Mark laughs when he gets to the door and opens it.

“Good luck!” He says, thrusting a fist in the air. With another smile, he’s gone. Donghyuck smiles all the way home.

Renjun tells Donghyuck about the talent show on the phone later that night, and that he will break into his house and steal every pair of underwear Donghyuck owns if he doesn’t say he’ll do it. When Donghyuck is standing in front of the sign-up sheet pinned to the bulletin board outside of the school office, having just written his name as contestant 4, he tells himself he’s doing it because of Renjun’s threat rather than because he wants to make Mark happy. 

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

Mark gets excited to the point of almost causing Donghyuck stress when he tells him about the talent show. Then, at least 3 times a week, every week, either on the way to school or from school, he asks Donghyuck how he’s going with practice. Donghyuck doesn’t know what to say other than, “Well? I think?” like a broken record. He doesn’t tell Mark that he’s so nervous he’s started having dreams about getting up on stage only to just instantly drop dead because he doesn’t expect Mark to want to hear that. He hadn’t expected him to be so interested in the first place. 

He also hadn’t expected their walks to school and from school to stick like routine, but they do. Mark turns up at his house every morning and waits on the grass. He smiles at him when Donghyuck breaks out of his house before either his mother or Donghee can get to Mark first. He smiles at him when they meet back up at the school gate after class. They make conversation and they make each other laugh and when Renjun asks Donghyuck if he’d consider ‘Mission: Make Friends With Mark’ a success, he stops and thinks for a second. Then he nods. 

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

Like any semester does, the weeks fly by until suddenly it’s almost the middle of term, the talent show is in three days and he has an English essay due tomorrow that he hasn’t started, yet he’s sat squished between Renjun and a young looking girl with a foam finger in the bleachers of the sports hall waiting for the second basketball game of the season to start. 

(The first had fallen on Donghee’s birthday, and as much as he pretends she bothers him, there was no way he was missing out on a slice of birthday cake to stare at Mark Lee. That’s not to say that he didn’t heavily rethink his decision when his mother showed him the pictures of Mark from the night before that had been put in the school newsletter, all sweaty and concentrated, while he ate his breakfast and tried not to think obscene things at the dinner table. But regardless, he’d missed the first game and as punishment for leaving Renjun to cheer for his boyfriend alone, he’d been dragged to the second one. Now, watching Mark adjust the sweat headband on his head and flick his hair out of his eyes, he wonders if Renjun knows what the word ‘punishment’ means.)

Like he can hear Donghyuck thinking about him, Renjun elbows him in the stomach. 

“Stop staring at Mark. One of these days, he’s going to catch you.” Like he’s been cued, Mark looks up and locks eyes with Donghyuck. He grins. Donghyuck smiles back because he has to and then averts his eyes quickly to Renjun.

“Did you make him do that? Are you in his brain?” He asks, reaching into the cardboard container of popcorn in Renjun’s lap and stealing a handful.

“No, idiot. You’re just embarrassingly obvious.” Renjun slaps at his hand but lets him take the popcorn. 

As Donghyuck eats it, he watches Jeno walk out from the locker room to join his team, eyes searching the crowd for something. They rove over the people sitting in the stands until they land on Donghyuck then move instantly to Renjun, his face breaking into a smile. 

“Junnie!” He yells, making Yukhei, who’s standing next to him, jump. Renjun smiles and blows a kiss that Jeno catches out of the air and presses to his cheek. Donghyuck retches in response and spits chewed corn kernels out of his mouth, dropping them back into the rest of the popcorn when Renjun isn’t looking. Renjun turns to look at him.

“You could be blowing kisses at Mark Lee right now instead of staring at him like a weirdo if you’d just make a move, you know.” Donghyuck watches Jeno walk over to where Mark is talking to Mina Kang, looking pretty in her cheerleading uniform, on the sidelines of the court. 

“I already told you. I’m not going to do that.” Donghyuck says, looking away.

“I was hoping you’d decide you wanted to be more than friends once you realised just ‘friends’ isn’t enough for you.” Renjun replies.

“What makes you think friendship isn’t enough for me?” Donghyuck is starting to get agitated. He doesn’t want to have this conversation, especially not when he’s practically forced to look at the subject of it throughout. 

“The fact that I can tell you’re jealous of Mina.” Renjun says, and Donghyuck shakes his head.

He isn’t jealous of Mina Kang at all. That isn’t why he looks away when he sees them talking, standing too close together even with the excuse of the noise of the crowd making it difficult to converse without being in each other’s space. That isn’t why he’d suggested Mark kiss Mina Kang next time they won an important game. He did those things because Mina, and anyone like Mina, is to Donghyuck now what Yukhei was to him in 8th grade combined Music. The better option.

One-sided love is a selfish thing by nature but Donghyuck isn’t selfish enough to imagine himself being the one to wish Mark good luck before a game like Mina gets to. Like Mark does for Donghyuck before a performance. Because when Mark does it for him, he is being polite. If Donghyuck were to be standing were Mina is, it would be because he loves him. And just like he stayed on the other side of Mr Qian’s Music classroom no matter how much he wished he was right there beside Mark, he will not force himself into Mark’s world. Mark doesn’t deserve that. 

Donghyuck just cares more about Mark than Mark ever will about him. Despite all the growing he’s done and all the changing every other aspect of life has seen, Donghyuck is still the kid that Mark took pity on in Music class on the first day of 8th grade. Donghyuck won’t ask for more than he is given.

Renjun must be able to tell that Donghyuck isn’t going to respond because he sighs and turns away to watch the players on the opposing time start to file into the sports hall. 

The game is close but in the last few minutes, Jeno and Mark manage to score enough points to completely turn the game, with Jeno making the last hoop right as the buzzer sounds. 

Renjun leaps onto his feet as the crowd cheers, flipping the popcorn tub so it tips on the floor and into the hair of the girls sitting in the row in front of them. They turn with scrutinising expressions and Donghyuck holds placating hands out in front of him and stutters out apologies until Renjun grabs his wrist and tugs him down the bleachers and onto the hardwood floor of the court so he can see Jeno before he leaves to go back to the locker room. 

Mark intercepts them before they can get to their destination. Like he’s been hoping for someone to pawn Donghyuck off too, Renjun lets go of where he’d been tugging Donghyuck behind him and nudges him into Mark.

“Talk to Mark so I can go kiss my boyfriend for winning the game.” He says as he walks off, not turning around or waiting for a response from Donghyuck. Donghyuck looks at Mark with exasperated eyes and Mark laughs. 

“Did you enjoy the game? Jeno’s last shot was pretty sweet, right?” Donghyuck doesn’t know anything about basketball. 

“Yeah, it looked cool. I don’t understand enough about the game to evaluate it critically though.” He replies, looking up at Mark as he shakes his jersey to let air onto the heated skin of his chest.

“I swear I see you in the stands at every game, though? You’ve either got a burning sense of school pride, doubtful, or you come to watch someone specific play.” Donghyuck thinks that’s a massive logical leap to make with little to no evidence. He tells Mark as much.

Mark wriggles his eyebrows. “Come on. Just tell me you come to watch me, even if you don’t mean it. I need the ego boost, Hyuckie.” Donghyuck’s cheeks are hurting.

“You do not need the ego boost. Your fat head is already the size of an engorged melon. I come to watch Jeno play.” Mark laughs and pushes Donghyuck by the shoulder. 

“A pretty melon? A watermelon?” Mark says, fluttering his eyelashes. Donghyuck looks at him with disdain.

“No. The kind that people feel an indescribable urge to smack.” Mark’s face drops and Donghyuck laughs at his fake-offended expression.

“You don’t mean that.” Mark says, knowingly. Donghyuck feels a spike of fear but he dismisses it.

“Oh, I don’t? What are you basing that claim off of?” He tilts his head in faux-interest. 

“The fact that you’re here talking to me. That means you must like me, even a little bit. I know you wouldn’t let me speak to you if you thought I wasn’t worth your time. That’s why you only hang around with Renjun, and Jeno by extension, right?” Donghyuck thinks it’s interesting that Mark still thinks anyone has any power to deny him anything. He hums.

“Very observant of you, Mr Melon Head. I’m not going to tell you you’re right because you simply don’t deserve it.” Mark throws his head back and laughs. Donghyuck smiles. Mark’s laugh is interrupted by Mina walking over and stopping next to them. She looks at Donghyuck with a smile.

“Hey! Donghyuck, right?” She says with a sweet voice, and Donghyuck tries not to let his eyes show that he is very confused that she knows his name. He mustn’t do a very good job of it. “Oh, Mark talks about you. You guys live near each other, right? He said you walk together.” Mina doesn’t realise she’s said something telling. She would have called Donghyuck Mark’s friend if Mark had used those words, wouldn’t she? But she didn’t. Donghyuck shuts the thought down. 

He nods and doesn’t look at Mark. “Yeah, that’s me.” 

Mina smiles. “Cool. Hey, Mark? We’re all leaving for celebratory pizza in a couple minutes, do you want me to wait for you?” Donghyuck follows her eyes to where she’s looking at Mark, but Mark is looking at him. 

“Yeah, just give me a sec- Hyuck, do you want to come?” Mark says. Donghyuck knows it’s a pity invitation. He doesn’t feel like watching Mark bask in the spotlight from the dark of the audience over pizza tonight. 

“No, you go. It’s all good, I’ll just walk home alone.” Donghyuck shrugs but Mark’s eyes widen.

“You’re still walking home this late? Isn’t your mum here to pick you up? Or Renjun’s? Jeno’s?” He sounds worried. Donghyuck shakes his head.

“No, I was gonna wait for you. Didn’t think about the celebratory dinner you’d be going to if you won. It’s cool though. I’ll have my EXO playlist to keep me company.” He tries for a joke but Mark looks like he’s ready to rebut again when one of the members of the team shouts from the doors of the locker room. 

“Mark, move it! We can’t have the winning meal without the winning Captain.”

Mina puts a hand on Mark’s elbow and Mark looks down at it, then back to Donghyuck’s eyes. Donghyuck motions towards the door with a tilt of his chin.

“Go, Captain.” He says, smiling to show Mark he isn’t hurt. Even if he was (he is), it wouldn’t be Mark’s fault.

Mark turns and looks to the doors of the locker room, where members of the team are already starting to emerge in clean clothes. “Yeah, okay. Get home safe, Hyuck.”

Donghyuck nods. Mark nods back at him, then looks at Mina, who smiles and leaves them to walk back over to the other cheerleaders. With a last look, Mark turns and follows the rest of the team to the locker room. 

Donghyuck goes without saying goodbye to Renjun. He leaves his headphones in his pocket and walks home in the silence.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

Despite the fact that Donghyuck likes to think of himself and Mark as friends, they don’t speak to each other in school. They part at the gate every morning with a wave and join back up 6 hours later for the journey home. Donghyuck goes to sleep looking forward to those first 15 minutes and spends his whole day looking forward to the next 15 minutes. This fact is part of the reason Donghyuck was so surprised when Mina Kang said his name like she was certain of it despite her questioning tone.

This fact is also what makes Donghyuck freeze when Mark leaves his basketball friends and walks right over to him about 5 minutes before the talent show is due to start. Renjun has just left him to find Jeno and do a final check of the speakers together, Student Leadership duties, leaving him alone and twiddling his thumbs amongst the 6 or so other people performing at the edge of the auditorium stage, now with Mark Lee is at his side. Donghyuck thinks he must be looking at him like he’s never seen him before.

“Hey, Hyuck. Are you nervous?” Donghyuck looks at him for a second longer, then looks down at his own hands where they’re trembling. He holds one up to Mark’s eye sight. Mark laughs and grabs it, rubbing a soothing palm of his own over it. Donghyuck hopes to any God listening that Mark doesn’t notice the way his palms get just a little bit sweatier in Mark’s grasp. “Johnny always tells me to imagine the crowd naked when I get nervous before games, if that helps.” 

Donghyuck takes his hand back and returns to picking at his cuticles. “That sounds like something Johnny would say. Also, no. Not helpful at all.” 

Mark laughs and shrugs. Then his expression evens and he looks at Donghyuck with serious eyes. Donghyuck likes it better when he smiles. 

“You know we’re all going to be proud of you even if you get up there and just go mute for 3 minutes? Me, Renjun and Jeno?” 

Donghyuck doesn’t know how to respond to that. And he doesn’t have to, because Mina appears at Mark’s side and takes his attention. Donghyuck looks at her when Mark turns to face her.

She isn’t wearing her school uniform like every other student in the hall, she’s wearing black tracksuit pants and a frayed black jumped that hangs off her shoulders so her collarbones shine. Donghyuck looks back at her face to see her grinning excitedly at Mark.

“I didn’t tell you because I thought it would be a fun surprise, but I listened to you. I signed up for the show!” Donghyuck’s lips part. Mark’s eyes light up. “And, Mr Lee just told me I’m up first.”

“Mina, oh my god. That’s what you were talking about at pizza after the game the other night? Fuck, you’re going to be great.” Seeing Mark this excited gives Donghyuck a sick sense of déjà vu. 

Mina smiles. “Thank you. I need to start stretching if I don’t want to pull something though. I’ll see you afterwards?” She tilts her head questioningly. Mark nods.

“Of course. Good luck, break a leg.” 

Donghyuck feels like he’s intruding.

A kid from Student Leadership taps on a microphone on the other side of the stage and speaks into that the show will be starting in 2 minutes. Mina waves goodbye to Mark and Donghyuck as she walks to the closest set of stairs onto the stage, then starts to stretch her arms as she walks.

Mark looks at Donghyuck for the first time.

“I gotta go and get a seat, Hyuck. See you at the gate this afternoon?” Donghyuck nods woodenly and Mark reaches over and ruffles his hair. He turns and walks back to his friends in the front row. 

“Good luck.” Donghyuck whispers to the back of Mark’s head, too far away to hear. 

He tunes out when Mr Lee walks onto the stage to kick off the talent show in favor of sorting through the thoughts having been playing on a loop in his head for the past few minutes. 

Mark does not owe him anything. He does not owe it to Donghyuck to make him feel special, just like he does not owe it to Donghyuck to even think he is special at all. Donghyuck is just one of the many people who admire Mark. Donghyuck thought he was okay with that. Maybe not okay with it, but at least at peace with the idea.

The fact that Mark had probably been just as enthusiastic when convincing pretty Mina to do the talent show as he had been with average Donghyuck still feels like a punch to the gut though. He asks himself why Mark bothered but he dismisses the question. Mark encouraged him because he is polite. Unfalteringly so. 

He wonders how much of their ‘friendship’ is rooted in Mark offering things purely because he is kind by nature and Donghyuck taking advantage and accepting all of it, even having the gall to wish for more. The fact that Donghyuck calls it a friendship and Mark presumably introduces him as the kid he walks to school with itself is a testament to his own greed. Donghyuck wants what he doesn’t deserve. What isn’t meant for him. 

He leaves the sports hall through one of the back doors just in time to catch Mina gracefully move into the chorus of her piece and Mark watching her with enamored, smiley eyes.

He can absently feel the wetness of his cheeks and the worsened tremble of his hands as he slides down to a crouch on the outside wall of the auditorium, pulling his breaths so they don’t come out as harsh in case anyone happens to be near a window and gets curious about the heaving and hiccupping coming from outside. He doesn’t want anyone to see him being this pathetic. He’s crying about a boy paying less attention to him than he does to everyone else. No, paying the same amount of attention to him as he does to everyone else. Not giving him more. He leans his head back against the wall with too much force and it makes his already blurry vision shudder. He closes his eyes.

The door that Donghyuck had run from opens and he can hear someone getting closer to him over the song Mina is dancing to inside. He doesn’t know what to say to Renjun. That he was right? Of course, he was. Of course, just friendship isn’t enough for him. Of course, just being another one of Mark’s admirers, another love letter in his locker, isn’t enough. He opens his eyes to brace for Renjun’s, ‘I told you so.’

Mark Lee stands above him with terrified eyes. Donghyuck tries to wipe his face as quickly and discretely as he can, which is difficult because his whole face is wet and sticky with tears. Mark makes an urgent noise of distress and squats to Donghyuck’s level, grabbing both wrists.

“Hyuckie, what is it? What’s wrong? You don’t have to do the show if you don’t want to, I didn’t mean to force you into anything. You should have just told me to fuck off, I shouldn’t have pushed so hard. I know you get nervous-,“ His tone rises until it’s near frantic and Donghyuck feels the burn of more tears. So polite.

“Why did you come after me? You’re missing Mina’s performance.” His tone is harsh and he can see Mark recoil a bit, Donghyuck pulling his hands out of his hold.

“She wouldn’t mind.” Donghyuck doesn’t doubt that. Mina isn’t petty like he is. “Also, I came after you because you looked like you were freaking out and I wanted to make sure you were okay.” He looks pointedly at Donghyuck’s shiny face. “And you aren’t, so I’m staying.” 

Donghyuck rolls his eyes and pushes himself off the floor, leaving Mark still crouched. 

“I’m fine. Go back inside. If you see Renjun, tell him I’m going home.” He pauses and shakes his head. “Actually, you don’t have to do that.” Mark stands.

“Hyuck, just tell me what’s up. I’m only going back in there if you’re coming with me.”

Donghyuck blinks hard.

“Stop being so nice to me for the sake of it. No one is going to think less of you if you just leave me out here like you want to and go inside. It’s fine. I’m fine.” Mark stuns. His eyes aren’t smiling anymore. 

“I- What? I’m not doing anything for the sake of it. Why would you think that?” Mark’s eyes search Donghyuck’s face. “Donghyuck, what’s going on?” 

He doesn’t mean to say it but his brain keeps tripping on one thing and it’s entirely Donghyuck’s fault.

“I’m in love with you.” He feels like he needs to take a deep breath, like his own lungs are shocked to be relieved of the words weighing on his chest. “Now, please go back inside.” 

They’re both silent. 

Mark opens and closes his mouth like a fish for a few seconds. Donghyuck’s eyes are dry. The door to the auditorium opens again and Donghyuck looks at Mina sticking her head out of it. Mark is still looking at him.

“Ah, Donghyuck! Chaeryeong is about to finish her song and Mr Lee asked me to come see if you were- Oh, Mark?” Her eyes widen and she looks sheepish. “Oh. Um, I’m sorry. I’ll just-.”

“Tell Mr Lee I don’t feel well and that I’m sorry for wasting his time. Everyone’s time. Please.” She looks confused but nods. Donghyuck nods back and leaves her and Mark there, both watching him go.

He skips class for the rest of the day and sits in the bathroom to cry for a bit before he leaves out the school gates at least 2 hours before everyone else will. When Renjun gets home to him sitting on Renjun’s front porch steps with a pale face and red eyes, he doesn’t say ‘I told you so.’ Instead, he grabs Donghyuck’s hands to pull him to stand and then frees his own to thread one through the hair on the back on Donghyuck’s head and the other around his shoulders. When he pulls Donghyuck close, Donghyuck wishes he was in love with Renjun instead of Mark Lee.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

The next day, he drives his car to school. And the day after that. 

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

It’s surprisingly easy to avoid someone when you put your mind to it. Even when it’s someone you’ve spent years of your life hoping to see when you walk around a corner, wishing you’ll lock eyes with over the crowded tables in the cafeteria. Donghyuck takes the long way to his classes and keeps his head in his food at lunchtime. 

He stays back after Math class and apologises to Mr Lee about bailing on the talent show. Mr Lee looks at him with sympathetic eyes. Apparently, Mina had told him that Donghyuck was crying when she found him. Nice. He hopes, if nothing else, her and Mark (and probably the rest of the basketball team) were able to get a good laugh out of it. 

Communication between him and Mark has been radio silent. On the day after the talent show, Donghyuck had woken to his alarm before the sun had even rose, intent on leaving to drive to school as early as possible, so as to not have to face Mark when the other boy inevitably told him they couldn’t walk together anymore. He doesn’t want to have to put Mark through turning him down. The rejection echoes loud enough round his head just having been implied from his silence.

When Donghyuck gets home from school, parking his car back in its spot on the driveway, he asks his mother if she’d seen Mark that morning, as nonchalantly as he can muster with his heart bobbing in his throat. She shakes her head but doesn’t prod. So, Mark is avoiding him too. 

Donghyuck can tell that Renjun is trying not to treat him like cracked glass. Being accustomed to ending up watching the world move around Renjun and Jeno, its obvious to Donghyuck that Renjun is minimizing their affection in front of him because they think that’s what he wants. It’s not what he wants. 

When Jeno meets them at lunch after basketball practice and Donghyuck slumps a little, Jeno will look at him with sad eyes. Donghyuck wishes he could just bury his head in the sand, go back and say no to Mark’s invitation to walk with him. Say no to sitting with him in 8th grade Music class. Knowing Donghyuck’s luck, even avoiding him to begin with would have ended with Donghyuck nursing a depressing crush. Mark just shines too bright. He would love Mark anyway.

But time keeps passing. 

He gets through his mid semester assignments, giving his thanks to the extra hours spent in the library before school. He drives Donghee home with him when Minjung from next door has guitar lessons and can’t walk with her, and he ignores that even she’s actively trying not to push his buttons. He listens to Renjun complain about how Jeno doesn’t complain about anything and feels simultaneously like everything and nothing has changed. 

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

He’s sat alone in his room with the lights off, only the LED screen of his laptop and the glowing stars on his ceiling aiding his sight as he stares as his History homework, when his door opens and Donghee pops her head in. She looks between his unenthusiastic expression and where his laptop is set on his thighs for a few seconds before speaking.

“Can I come in?” She doesn’t usually ask. He nods.

She opens the door wider, just enough for her to slip through and walks into the room to sit gingerly next to Donghyuck on the bed. Putting one hand on Donghyuck’s knee and the other on the lid of his laptop, she pushes it closed. 

“What happened, big bro?” He looks at his closed laptop then at her. 

“Nothing. And you’d better hope that saved.” He says, about his homework. Her eyes harden. 

He moves his laptop of his lap and sits back to look at her. 

“Mark and I aren’t friends anymore. I don’t think we were to begin with. It’s no big deal.” It’s been weeks and he isn’t going to cry. 

“Did he do something? I’ll set his fucking house on fire, even if his brother is hot.” Donghee’s hand tenses around Donghyuck’s knee and he breaths out a laugh.

“You were, like, 11 when you last saw Johnny at his graduation. Relax. And no, it wasn’t him.” Donghee’s head tilts questioningly and Donghyuck looks to her face then back to his sheets. “I told him I was in love with him and he didn’t say anything.” 

Donghee goes still.

“Hyuckie.” Her piteous tone makes Donghyuck’s head throb.

“Don’t speak to me like that. I saw it coming. I just needed to scare him off so he stopped pretending to care. I’m over it.” Donghyuck knocks her hand off his knee and hugs both legs close to his chest. Donghee’s eyes shift.

“And what? You’re just gonna keep getting up at the asscrack of dawn every day to avoid him?” She asks, sounding disbelieving. “Also, you’ve been doing a pretty convincing sulk for the past few weeks. Unless, you’re vying for an Oscar, I’d say you’re not over it.” She says, pragmatically. 

Donghyuck feels a weight lift of his shoulders and tears bud in his eyes.

“You’re a bitch, you know that?” Her face changes when he looks up at her, wet faced and laughing. She lifts a hand to wipe a tear and he slaps it away, laughing harder at her fake-scorned expression. “Thanks for not treating me like everyone else is.” He says sincerely, as she looks at him knowingly. Her face gets cheeky.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She says with puffed shoulders. She relaxes then continues. “You need to stop being a coward. Since when are you the kind of person who hides? You’re a Lee, Hyuck. And right now, you’re embarrassing me.” 

Donghyuck laughs and pushes her so she falls sideways on the bed.

“Alright, alright. God. If I didn’t know you, I’d think you were being this way specifically to hurt my feelings.” He says conspiratorially. She hums.

“Good job you know me then, big bro. Make me proud to know you. Stop running like a loser and own up.” She sits back up on the bed and looks at him seriously. He nods and looks at his feet. Donghee scoots closer and leans in when he isn’t looking to wrap both of her arms around his shoulders. He lifts his own to meet on her lower back. They sit comfortably intertwined for a second before Donghee’s breath hitches dramatically and she retches over his shoulder. 

“How do you still smell like pure stinky boy sweat when we’re about to hit winter? You have a problem.” She says, nose pegged as she pulls away and gets off the bed to walk back to the door. Donghyuck laughs.

“I love you, Hee. Thank you.” He says when she gets to the door.

She looks back at him and her soft eyes say what her mouth doesn’t. 

“Get in the shower, you sap.” 

When Renjun asks Donghyuck if he wants to go to the last basketball game of the season in History the next day, like he has the day before every game on the off chance Donghyuck says yes, he hears his sister’s voice in his head and agrees. 

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

The stands are the most crowded Donghyuck has ever seen them. He’s practically sitting in Renjun’s lap, one of Renjun’s leg thrown over his so he isn’t sat uncomfortably close to the boy on his other side. They don’t have any popcorn today, so Donghyuck is fiddling with his fingers in his lap. Renjun flicks at his hands for the 4th time and complains he’s tickling his shin with all his finger-fluttering. Donghyuck flicks at said shin in retaliation. Renjun scowls and turns his attention to wave at his boyfriend on the court as they get into their positions just in time for the game to start.

When they’d first sat down, Donghyuck had given the court a cursory glance and found Mark standing alone on the side lines with a ball at his feet, staring out into the court. He looked to be in a world of his own. Donghyuck looked away. 

As soon as the game starts, Donghyuck can tell that Mark is somewhere else. He’s missing shots that Donghyuck knows from watching past games that he could usually clear in a heartbeat. He’s dragging his feet across the polished wood court, tripping over the soles of his shoes. He ignores his team members, and Donghyuck watches as Jeno raises his arms exasperatedly in Marks direction.

“What is he doing?” Donghyuck mutters. Renjun hums.

“He’s been playing like this for the last couple of games. It’s annoying Jeno enough that he literally brought it up right in the middle of us making out in his car the other night. The first thing he’s vocally complained about in years. His timing could have been better but alas.” Renjun says condolingly. Donghyuck rolls his eyes and focuses back on the game.

Mark misses a catch from one of the other team members.

Donghyuck breathes out through his teeth.

The referee blows the whistle for the ball to go to the other team and Jeno walks over to Mark, clapping him heavily over his shoulder and starting to talk to him, raising his voice when Mark doesn’t respond. Renjun hisses. Jeno seems to calm down after a look up into the stands and Mark’s shoulders sag. Jeno gives him a softer pat to the bicep and turns to go back to his position.

When the referee blows his whistle for the commencement of play, Donghyuck watches Mark look around, dazed. He spins to turn to the stands and their eyes lock. 

They both freeze. 

Donghyuck blinks. He tries to not be affected. Mark is staring at him unwaveringly.

He lifts one of his hands from his lap, making a thumbs up.

“Good luck.” He mouths to Mark, hesitantly smiling. 

Mark looks like he’s been smacked out of a daydream. He smiles back, small, and turns back to the game.

He makes the next shot he throws. And the one after that. Renjun’s leg tenses across Donghyuck’s thighs. Donghyuck leans forward on his seat.

He turns to check the scoreboard. There’s a minute left and they still need at least one shot to win the game, with Jeno managing to barely hold down a close loss while Mark was struggling. 

Jeno seems to sense Mark’s new-found energy and passes the ball to him, calling out encouragement as Mark weaves around the players of the other team with ease. He makes it to the other end of the court and shoots. Donghyuck holds his breath and scrunches his eyes shut tight as it soars through the air. It feels like the crowd goes silent.

He hears the swish of the net. There’s a beat of silence.

The crowd roars.

Donghyuck opens his eyes and looks at the leaderboard, seconds ticking to zero then the final buzzer sounding. 

They’ve won.

Donghyuck smiles genuinely, one of a handful over the past few weeks. 

He breathes deep with relief as Renjun mutters swear words next to him with a hand over his heart, calming his adrenaline. 

On the court, Mark has been swept into a tornado of screams and hoots. Donghyuck catches one glance of his smiley eyes and feels his confidence dissolve instantaneously like cotton candy in water. He feels the smile slip off his face.

He pushes Renjun’s leg off of his, who looks at him confusedly, and stands up. 

“I’m gonna go wait at the front gate. Give my congrats to Jeno when you get down there if you can spare a second without his tongue in your mouth.” Renjun’s face quickly squishes into one of amusement.

“I’ll see what I can do. Don’t you think he deserves to have his tongue in my mouth right now? They’ve just won the last game of the season.” Renjun pokes at Donghyuck’s stomach where he’s stood in front of him in the middle of the bustling crowd as everyone tries to get down onto the court. Donghyuck pulls a face, laughs and follows Renjun down onto the court once he stands, peeling away to walk out the back doors towards the front of the school where he’s parked.

He’s been stood at the gate for a few minutes, scrolling on his phone while listening to the still lingering whoops of joy from the hall as they carry across the grass and the tidbits of conversation as people exit the school past him, when he sees someone approaching. 

He pockets his phone, expecting for it to be Renjun ready to leave, albeit much sooner than he was anticipating, but is shocked out of breath when he sees who’s in front of him.

“Hey.” Mark Lee says, lowering his head awkwardly in greeting. Donghyuck gulps. 

“Hey. Congrats on the win.” The end lilts like a question. Donghyuck squeezes his hands into fists to ground himself.

“Yeah.” Mark replies. They’re still holding eye contact. Mark breaks it to look past Donghyuck into the parking lot behind him. “I’ve been seeing your car in the lot before school.” 

Donghyuck nods once, his eyes wide and on Mark’s face.

“I drive here now.” Donghyuck says.

Mark nods and looks down at his shoes. They stand in silence. Donghyuck shuffles on his feet.

“Well, I was just going.” He’ll wait for Renjun in the car. He spins swiftly to leave but Mark grabs him by the arm.

“I’m sorry.” He says forcefully, loud and sudden like he’s had to push up his throat with sheer effort. Donghyuck tenses and turns back around. 

He looks at Mark’s wide, panicked eyes.

“Didn’t I tell you it wasn’t your fault?”

Mark shakes his head quickly.

“No, I’m sorry for not saying anything when you-.“ He cuts himself off with a deep breath. 

“Oh.” Donghyuck says. He scratches the back of his neck, his cheeks singed, and thanks God he isn’t crying. “That’s fine too. You don’t owe me anything. I shouldn’t have put it on you like that.” He’s very aware of the fact Mark is still tethering Donghyuck’s body to him with the hand on his arm. 

“I’m sorry for not saying it back.” It feels too direct to be anything other than a rejection.

“Right. I get you feel guilty but it’s okay. You don’t need to feel bad, I promise. I have to go.” He’s doing a good job at keeping the urge to cry at bay, but he isn’t sure how much longer he can control it, so he tugs his arm out of Mark’s grip and turns to start walking again.

He gets two steps away when Mark says it.

“Donghyuck, I love you.” Donghyuck goes stock-still. “I’m in love with you.” 

Donghyuck spins. Mark is looking at his feet.

“Mark, you’re verging on cruel. I already told you I get it. I’m sorry I said anything.” 

Mark looks up and their eyes lock. His eyes are wet with tears. 

“I’m in love with you, Hyuckie.” A tear tracks down the slope of his cheek and slides off to fall to the ground.

Donghyuck moves without thought. One second he’s standing a good few feet away, set to bolt, and the next he has his arms swung around Mark’s neck and Mark’s arms tight around his waist while Mark sniffles into the juncture of his shoulder and throat.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t say anything but you really did spring it on me, I didn’t think you felt the same. I thought Jeno would have told me if you’d have said anything but then I realised that you weren’t acting as if you knew so he musn’t have been saying anything to either of us, then Mina told me to just go for it- I tutor her, by the way? She told me to tell you that if I ever got my head out of my ass. I mean, I thought I blew it when I went mute and school got really hectic-.” Mark blubbers into Donghyuck’s neck without taking a breath and Donghyuck huffs a laugh, his own tears darkening Mark’s basketball jersey, and soothes a hand down Mark’s back.

Then he pulls back.

“Jeno knew?” Donghyuck says, surprised at first but his expression quickly fades to realisation.

“Yeah, he did. Wait, did he say something?” Mark says, nervous. “Oh my god, he didn’t actually tell you the things I said to him, did he? Holy shit, that is so embarrassing.” He groans, tucking his chin into his own chest in mortification. Donghyuck giggles and hooks a finger under his jaw to lift his head. 

“No, he just kept pulling faces that time when I spoke Renjun about you and he was there. I thought it was because you’d told him you hated me or something.” The stress eases in Mark’s shoulders as quickly as it appeared.

“Shit, no. It was a lot more about how much I wanted to talk to you and regretted fucking up my chance in 8th grade.” Mark’s cheeks are red. “I’m so sorry about that by the way. I realised after about 40 seconds that Yukhei is definitely not cool enough to have warranted me doing that, and even if he was, 14-year-old me was an asshole for abandoning you.” He says, guiltily. 

Donghyuck tilts his head playfully.

“18-year-old you is an asshole for making me wait 3 weeks to tell me he loved me back.” 

Mark winces and tries on a charming smile, the effect dulled by his raw eyes and shiny face but effective nonetheless. 

“18-year-old me does love you though.” He says. Donghyuck soaks it in.

“You love me?” He says. They look at each other, both faces soaked in tears and necks wet with each other’s. 

“I love you.” Mark says. Donghyuck has missed those smiley eyes. He breathes out. Mark puts his hands gingerly on either side of Donghyuck’s face, running both thumbs under his lower eyelashes to brush the tears away. “I love you,” he repeats. 

Donghyuck makes a soft noise. “You didn’t get to kiss me when you won the game in 9th grade but you could kiss me now if you wanted.”

Mark smiles. He leans in. 

Their mouths meet and there aren’t fireworks. Instead, it feels like having someone to sit next to on the first day in a new class of strangers. It feels like comfort. 

They stand there, held together, for what must be at least a minute. One of Mark’s hands rests on Donghyuck’s waist with the other still on his face while Donghyuck is cupping Mark’s shoulder blades, pulling their chests together. The hand on Donghyuck’s waist squeezes when Mark pulls back. 

“Okay, we’re going to have to stop until I can blow my nose cause you’ve made me cry and now I’m full of snot.” He says, taking deep breaths out of his mouth. Donghyuck laughs, loud and surprised.

“Charming.” Mark’s eyes crease with the force of his smile.

“I love you.” He says. 

Mark Lee loves Donghyuck. 

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

“Thank you so much for leaving me stranded last night after you disappeared. I didn’t tell Jeno you said congratulations in favour of sucking on his tongue all night, just in spite of you.” Renjun snarks, after sighing out a quiet breath of relief from behind Donghyuck upon seeing him safe and healthy at their lunch table rather than dead in a ditch as his unanswered texts would indicate. 

Donghyuck laughs.

“Sorry, Injunnie. I got a bit caught up, then couldn’t get to my phone all night.” Donghyuck replies. His cheeks hurt from the force of his smile. 

Renjun pulls a face.

“What could you possibly have gotten caught up with that’s made you flip such a hard 180? I’ve been mopping tears consistently for the past 3 weeks. The brightness of that smile is hurting my eyes.” 

As Renjun sits, Jeno and Mark walk into the cafeteria from behind Donghyuck, talking between the two of them about something. Jeno splits off to walk around to Renjun’s side of the table and press a quick kiss to the side of his mouth, before sitting down next to him on the bench, just in time for the two of them to get a front row seat to Mark greeting Donghyuck with a soft, “Hey, baby,” brimming with quiet adoration. The two of them watch Donghyuck preen shyly, tilting his chin upwards to receive on the lips a kiss that Mark aimed for his forehead. 

“What. The fuck.” 

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

The Johnny-shaped shadow behind the curtain of the front room of Mark’s house shrieks when Mark pulls Donghyuck close to kiss him goodbye that afternoon after they’ve walked home together, so loud that they both jump and turn toward the window. The shadow disappears with the quick scuffle of feet. Donghyuck giggles into Mark’s chest as he lays his forehead on Mark’s collarbone.

“God, no wonder he was so weird that day I came over. He knew you had a huge crush on me, didn’t he?” He says through his laugh.

“Present tense not past tense. I very much still have a huge crush on you.”

Donghyuck smiles.

“That makes two of us then.” He looks up at Mark, who’s looking down at him with an almost reverent expression on. “Do you wanna come over again? You left your jersey and stuff at mine last night.” 

The pair of them are slotted together on Donghyuck’s bed, Mark’s chin resting on Donghyuck’s shoulder and his arms around his middle with Donghyuck’s Math homework spread in front of them (because he may be fresh into the honeymoon phase with the boy he loves, but he still has 3 pages of algebra due second period tomorrow) when his door slams open and Donghee barges in. 

Donghyuck’s eyes move to the living room fan at the end of the bed that him and Mark had lugged up the stairs the night before when they’d gotten home after the basketball game and heated up Donghyuck’s room with the warmth of two people rather than just Donghyuck himself. Mark’s hands jump from Donghyuck’s torso in shock only to settle back on his thighs. 

“Mum said you must have the fan, it’s fucking boiling in my room- oh. Hello, Mark Lee.” She turns to them on the bed, stopping in her tracks where she’s already got a hand around the stand of the fan. 

Donghyuck feels Mark tense next to him and tries to suppress a smile.

“Hey, Donghee.” 

Donghee squints at the hands high on her brother’s thighs. Mark stays tense but doesn’t remove them. Donghyuck’s teeth emerge from his badly kept grin and he leans back into Mark’s chest. Donghee lifts her eyes to Mark’s face appraisingly.

“Okay. You can stay.” 

She looks at Donghyuck and her eyes glimmer, then she’s out the door with the fan without another word.

“She’s so fucking scary.” Mark says, deflating, his forehead resting on Donghyuck’s shoulder and his hands back to Donghyuck’s waist, pulling him tight to him in a consolation hug.

Donghyuck laughs. 

“She likes you. So do I.” 

Mark makes a noise of interest.

“Oh, do you? Mark says impishly, loosening his grip on Donghyuck’s middle to allow him to twist his torso and look back at his boyfriend. 

He hums contemplatively, eyes roving over Mark’s face. His smiley eyes. 

“I take it back.” He says simply. 

Mark splutters and sticks a sharp finger underneath Donghyuck’s ribs, making him laugh and wriggle away as Mark chases him across the bed.

He’s lying. Of course, he is.

**Author's Note:**

> (future me leaving this extra to the note that you're about to read cos i've just had an idea: would anyone be interested in a noren spin off of this fic with their getting-together story???? i kinda want to write it cos i am a little bit in love with them here hehe, PLEASE comment if you'd be interested :D. now onto the stupid note i left when i first posted this,)
> 
> I DON’T know how basketball works and I am not claiming to please reserve judgement for basketball centered errors.
> 
> formal is the equivalent of an american prom. 
> 
> just in case anyone didn’t get it, a combined class like their music class has students from both mark’s and donghyuck’s year levels combined together. in my head, it’s because there weren’t enough numbers in either group for split classes but i didn’t explicitly state that because its boring. i was in a combined music class in grade 8th, 9th and 10th grade and it was a hoot. 
> 
> i made the girl who donghee walked to school with called minjung, because i think i’m clever using a female version of mark’s korean name to mirror hyuck’s relationship in his sister. 
> 
> SORRY for using the typical ‘mark being obsessed with watermelon’ thing, except i'm not because he called a watermelon ‘pretty’ in real life the other day which deserves to be made fun of and part of me thinks its cute.
> 
> i know hyuck has said that his english name, if he had to have one, is peter but BY GOLY is that horrific and this is my fic so i took creative liberty with charlie. i think he suits it. sound off in the comments below and flame me for deviating from the source material if you want but peter is an ugly name for donghyuck and you know it. 
> 
> ALSO, mr qian is kun obvs. i have such strong feelings for this man. anyone who was unhappy about me changing hyuck’s english name, you’d be pleased to note i stuck right to canon with unlucky kun having to struggle to get lucas to behave hehe. 
> 
> mr lee is taeyong, not because i think he’s mean enough to give homework on the first day of school, but because i like to imagine him solving difficult maths equations in a suit.
> 
> mr moon is taeil because he'd look hot in a lab coat and mark has him wrapped around his finger. 
> 
> last thing, don’t we all love a high school musical moment. i was a hair away from having hyuck wear a ’t’ necklace for tark. nothing but appreciation for my dongriella and tark. 
> 
> thank you for reading. xx


End file.
